Tag: religion

Hegseth Slashes ‘Faith Codes’ in Move to Make Chaplains the Spiritual Backbone of the US Military

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth says his latest reforms will allow the Chaplain Corps to fulfill its mission of being the spiritual backbone of America’s military.

The number of faith codes used in the service has been winnowed down to 31, according to a War Department news release.

In 2017, the Pentagon issued a list of 221 groups that qualify as a religious group. The list included Wiccans and atheists, according to Stars and Stripes.

“The previous system had ballooned to well over 200 faith codes,” Hegseth said Tuesday.

“It was impractical and unusable, and many codes were never used at all,” Hegseth said, adding that most of the 82 percent of service members who identify as being religious used six of the codes.

The reduction “brings the codes in line with its original purpose, giving chaplains clear, usable information so they can minister to service members in a way that aligns with that service member’s faith background and religious practice,” Hegseth said.

Hegseth added that the chaplains will display their religious insignia on their uniforms instead of their ranks.

“A chaplain is first and foremost a chaplain, and an officer second. This change is a visual representation of that fact,” he said.

“While they will retain rank as an officer to those they serve, their rank will not be visible.”

Hegseth said his Chaplain Corps reforms are not over.

“These two reforms are big progress, but we’re not even close to being done. These are the first steps toward restoring the esteemed position of chaplain as moral anchors of our fighting force,” Hegseth said.

“Theirs is a high and sacred calling, but they can only be successful if they are given the freedom to boldly guide and care for their flock.”

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Christian Girl Subjected to Daily Backpack Searches, Scolded for Sharing Her Faith in Jesus

Imagine your daughter being pulled out of math class by a school official and told she must leave her faith at the door – while the very same school encourages other students to walk out for anti-ICE protests.

That’s not hypothetical. That’s exactly what happened to our client at a middle school in Washington state – in a district with a troubling pattern of violating the Constitution.

And we know this district well – because the ACLJ has already held it accountable once before.

Years ago, when our client was just a second grader in this same district, school officials searched her backpack every morning, treating Christian materials like contraband. Simply sharing her faith was enough to trigger daily inspections.

We stepped in. We took action. And we forced the district to back down.

After we sent a demand letter, the school district entered into a formal written agreement – explicitly affirming our client’s constitutional right to share her faith.

However, during a recent math class, the vice principal entered the room, pulled our client aside, and told her she was not allowed to distribute Christian Gospel tracts – even to willing classmates.

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Pete Hegseth’s Christianity Is Not the Christianity of the Bible

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal [fleshly]. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood.

The Apostle Paul

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sees himself as a crusader. He calls himself a Christian. He believes his faith instructs him to “kill the infidels.” And as did the crusaders in the Middle Ages, Hegseth views the “infidels” primarily as the Muslim people. But Hegseth’s “Christian” crusade goes well beyond that. If he were able to annihilate every Muslim on earth, he would then set his sights on anyone who does not share his heretical Christian Nationalist ideology.

With a “divine” mission to “kill, kill, kill” (Hegseth’s words), there is no need and no room for rules of engagement. In fact, Hegseth calls the rules of engagement “stupid.” There is no need and no room for Just War. There is no need and no room for international law. There is no need and no room for constitutional law. As Hegseth sees it, his wars are “anointed” by God.

Back in 2001 and 2003, GW Bush and the neocons in his administration justified the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by accusing the Muslims in those regions of being “religious fanatics.” And in truth, the fanatics within Islam are almost exclusively subgroups within Sunni Islam—including the members of ISIS, ISIL, al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, etc. You know, the Muslim fanatics that are supported by Donald Trump and the U.S. government, the ones that Trump helped to put in power in Syria. But they are rarely found (at least in large numbers) within Shia Islam.

Today, however, the “religious fanatics” are located in Washington, D.C., and in Christian Zionist evangelical churches, personified in Pete Hegseth.

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Aliens are ‘demons’ – Vance

US Vice President J.D. Vance has said aliens are in fact “demons,” vowing to dig into US government files on UFOs.

He made the remarks in an interview with podcaster Benny Johnson released on Friday. Vance discussed the UFO files and government disclosures, saying he is “obsessed” with the topic, but has not had enough time to “get to the bottom of it.”

“I’ve already had a couple of times where I’ve said, ‘All right, we’re going to Area 51, we’re going out to New Mexico, we’re going to sort of get to the bottom of this.’ And then the timing of the trip didn’t work out,” he said. “I’m more curious than anybody. And I’ve got three years at the very tippy top of the classification. I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”

Area 51 is a secretive US Air Force facility in southern Nevada that has long been linked to speculation about alien life.

Johnson asked Vance about President Donald Trump’s February order directing federal agencies to begin “identifying and releasing” government files related to UFOs and aliens. Trump said he was taking the step “based on the tremendous interest shown,” shortly after former President Barack Obama publicly said that aliens are “real.”

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Pope Leo XIV Picks a Top Rothschild Executive To Head the Vatican Bank, Sending the Conspiracy Theories Into Overdrive

Rothschilds were raided by French Police in Epstein probe; but, today, a former executive controls Vatican Finances.

Just a few days ago, the top exorcists in the Catholic Church met with Pope Leo XIV to ask of him to reinforce the ranks of priests and bishops trained to deal with the surge in occult and satanic practices.

This is fact, not a rumor or unverified report (check at the bottom of the post).

But today, Leo appointed François Pauly as next president of the Vatican Bank.

Before we can even evaluate whether this is a good choice or not, a thick fog has risen with wild conspiracy claims that an ancient secret society is taking direct control of the Catholic Church’s finances.

Pauly is the new president of the supervisory board for the ‘Institute for the Works of Religion’, managing the church’s money, properties and charitable works.

The problem is where he comes from.

Daily Mail reported:

“Conspiracy theorists immediately seized on Pauly’s ties to the powerful Rothschild group – one of the most famous international banking families in history that has been alleged to be part of the secret society known as the Illuminati.”

While no one needs to believe in the Illuminati, the notion that elite bankers, politicians, Freemasons and powerful families worldwide act to manipulate governments and world events is hardly controversial anymore.

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Youth centre did not report 16-year-old girl’s rape to authorities because ‘Muslim boys are already under enough police scrutiny’, German media claims

A report in the German media has claimed that a youth centre did not report a girl’s alleged rape to authorities due to concerns that ‘Muslim boys are already under enough police scrutiny.’

The claims emerged regarding the handling of serious allegations at the Wutzkyallee youth centre in Neukölln, Berlin.

German outlet Bild reported that a sworn affidavit from employees at the neighboring facility, MaDonna, confirmed suspicions that authorities failed to report alleged rapists due to concerns over scrutiny of Muslim boys. The claims have been denied.

The affidavit is said to detail the case of a 16-year-old Turkish-Kurdish schoolgirl who was allegedly raped by an Arab boy and subsequently sexually assaulted by eight others in a secluded area of the youth centre.

The document has been submitted to both the Senate and district politicians.

It indicates that the alleged perpetrators filmed the assaults and used the footage to blackmail the victim.

Additionally, the group reportedly attempted to persuade the victim’s younger sister to meet with them.

In the affidavit, it was stated: ‘In this context, we informed the social services coordinator that a report must be filed. The social services coordinator refrained from doing so, as she feared it would marginalize the perpetrators.

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New Israeli policy targeting Christian schools in Jerusalem could threaten their future existence

The Israeli government instituted a policy prohibiting Christian Palestinian teachers who live in the West Bank from working in any of the 15 Christian schools in Jerusalem in a move that threatens to weaken the two-millennia presence of Christians in the Holy City.

School principals in Jerusalem recently received letters from the Israeli Ministry of Education stipulating that beginning in September they are required to only hire teachers who reside in the city and hold Israeli-issued qualifications.

The March 10 directive comes in the wake of a bill approved last July by the Education Committee of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) aimed at prohibiting Palestinian teachers who earned their degrees at institutions in the West Bank from teaching in Israel or the occupied East Jerusalem.

Therefore, work permits for Christian Palestinian teachers living in the West Bank will no longer be granted despite their possessing a green card that allows individual Palestinians to work and travel within Israeli-controlled areas.

According to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), this restriction will affect almost 230 Christian teachers at 15 schools in Jerusalem, relegating them to the financial hardship of unemployment.

A representative of the General Secretariat of Christian Schools (GSCS) in the Holy Land told ACN that the new policy threatens the future of Christian education in the Holy City.

Additionally, he said, “If this decision is truly implemented, our Christian schools will find themselves in a very difficult position, which will jeopardize their sustainability and cause them to lose their Christian mission.”

The GSCS representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity, explained, “There are not enough Christian teachers in Jerusalem to take over. In the long term, these restrictions risk permanently affecting the Christian character of our institutions and weakening the Christian faith and presence in the city.”

With most of these Christian schools having been founded in the late 19th century, they have educated hundreds of thousands of students, both Christian and Muslim, throughout the decades.

According to ACN, they were established “to promote Christian education and to preserve the Faith and the Christian presence in Jerusalem,” and “have played an essential role at national and interreligious levels.”

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Finland’s Supreme Court Convicts Parliamentarian for 2004 Church Pamphlet “Insulting” Gay People

Finland’s Supreme Court has found parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen guilty of “hate speech” for “insulting” gay people by expressing her beliefs on marriage and sexual ethics in a church pamphlet from 2004. ADF International, which is supporting Räsänen, has more.

In a narrow 3-2 decision, the Finnish Supreme Court has found parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen guilty of “hate speech” on one charge relating to the expression of her beliefs on marriage and sexual ethics in a 20 year-old church pamphlet. Räsänen has been criminally convicted for publishing the 2004 pamphlet for her church, alongside Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola. The conviction is for “making and keeping available to the public a text that insults a group”. The Supreme Court unanimously acquitted Räsänen for her 2019 Bible verse tweet.  

Räsänen was previously unanimously acquitted on all charges by two lower courts. 

The long serving parliamentarian and former Minister of the Interior has been convicted for “hate speech” under a section of the Finnish criminal code titled “war crimes and crimes against humanity”. The medical doctor and grandmother of 12 was tried in early 2022 and again in 2023 for expressing her beliefs in a 2019 tweet, which included a Bible verse, in addition to a 2019 radio debate and 2004 church booklet.  

After the prosecutor appealed for a third time, the Supreme Court, which heard the case in October 2025, has now ruled on two of the three original charges: concerning the tweet and the church booklet. The Supreme Court was not asked to rule on the radio debate as the prosecution did not appeal it, so Räsänen’s acquittal for the debate stands. 

“I am shocked and profoundly disappointed that the court has failed to recognise my basic human right to freedom of expression. I stand by the teachings of my Christian faith, and will continue to defend my and every person’s right to share their convictions in the public square,” stated Päivi Räsänen after receiving the judgment.

“I am taking legal advice on a possible appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. This is not about my free speech alone, but that of every person in Finland. A positive ruling would help to prevent other innocent people from experiencing the same ordeal for simply sharing their beliefs,” added Räsänen.  

The Court found Räsänen and the Bishop guilty for having “made available to the public and kept available to the public opinions that insult homosexuals as a group on the basis of their sexual orientation”. It held that: “It must be taken into account that the text forming the basis for the conviction did not contain incitement to violence or comparable threat-like fomenting of hatred. The conduct is therefore not particularly serious in terms of the nature of the offence.”

The pamphlet was authored by Räsänen in 2004. The Court convicted her on the basis that: “After a preliminary investigation into the matter was launched in 2019, Räsänen continued to share the article on her own internet and social media pages in 2019 and 2020.”

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Church attendance report pulled after YouGov finds ‘fraudulent’ responses

A report claiming the number of young people attending church in England and Wales had skyrocketed has been retracted, after the underlying data was found to be flawed.

The Bible Society’s “Quiet Revival” report had been widely reported on since its publication last year and became an accepted part of discourse among many Christians.

Now YouGov, which carried out the research, has told the Bible Society that an internal review of the data found that some of the respondents who completed its survey were “fraudulent”.

It has said that quality control measures, which usually remove such responses, were not applied due to human error.

The original report claimed to show that 4% of 18-24 year olds surveyed in 2018 told YouGov they were Christian and went to church at least once a month, rising to 16% by 2024.

The so-called “Quiet Revival” in young people going to church was mentioned in Parliament, lead to in-depth press coverage, and churches around the country presented their own evidence of young people “turning to Jesus”.

Last year, 600 people attended a church conference in Woking called “turning up the volume on the Quiet Revival”, hearing the phenomenon likened to “a great wave sent by God”.

But academics questioned the findings, pointing out that the results seemed out of step with other data. Results from the long-running British Social Attitudes Survey, and even the Church of England’s own figures, show a long term decline in church attendance.

Experts said that YouGov’s methodology – gathering data from volunteers who received cash rewards for their time – left it vulnerable to “bogus respondents” skewing the data.

YouGov now says that tools meant to eliminate data from such respondents – who may have participated and given random answers just to claim the rewards – “were not administered in the optimal way”.

It says the review of the figures it gave to the Bible Society had taken place “due to the ongoing scrutiny this work received.”

“YouGov takes full responsibility for the outputs of the original 2024 research, and we apologise for what has happened,” says its CEO Stephan Shakespeare.

“We would like to stress that Bible Society has at all times accurately and responsibly reported the data we supplied to them,” he said.

The Bible Society says it is “frustrated and disappointed to be in this position”, adding: “YouGov repeatedly assured us in private before publication, and several times in public following publication, that the results were reliable.”

Professor David Voas, emeritus professor of social science at University College London, was one of those who raised suspicion over the Bible Society’s findings.

“We’ve been telling them (the Bible Society) for the better part of a year that there were serious problems with the data – and even what those problems were likely to be – and they refused to engage with us,” says Professor Voas.

“I don’t know whether to feel gratified by the vindication or annoyed by the amount of time I wasted in pointing out that the numbers were clearly wrong,” he says.

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Canada’s House of Commons passes ‘anti-Christian’ bill that would criminalize quoting Bible

The majority of Canadian MPs have voted to pass a Liberal bill that will allow the criminalization of religious expression and belief when quoting parts of the Bible, including about homosexuality and gender.

Early Wednesday evening, MPs from the Liberal Party and the Bloc Québécois, in a 186–137 vote, passed Bill C-9, known as the “Combatting Hate Act.” Conservatives, NDP, and Green Party MPs voted against the bill in a rare form of unity among the usually opposing parties.

The bill now heads to Canada’s rubber-stamp Senate for review.

A last-minute effort by the Conservatives to change the wording of the bill failed to pass.

Earlier this week, Liberal MPs forced the bill through the report stage, after earlier, as reported by LifeSiteNews, shutting down all debate on the bill in the committee stage.

In comments sent to LifeSiteNews, Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) blasted the passage of Bill C-9 and called upon “Christians and pro-life advocates to prepare for increasing hostility.”

“With the passage of Bill C-9 in the House, Christians and pro-life advocates will almost certainly face an entirely new level of hostility, as the door swings open to actual persecution under a cloak of supposed legality,” said CLC’s Campaigns Manager David Cooke, who is also a Christian pastor.

Cooke said the Bill C-9 was framed as a law going after “hate,” but, in reality, it is a bill that religious leaders from various faith communities “say could lead to hate-related charges against believers – empowers ideologically-driven police officers and judges to target, for the first time, the very word of God on matters of life, family, and faith.”

“We must prepare for the battle ahead,” said Cooke, adding Canadians must “commit” to the “One who has won the ultimate victory over every foe, demonstrated by His resurrection on that first Easter morning.”

CLC Director of Political Operations Jack Fonseca noted that Bill C-9 must be stopped in its tracks in the Senate, but admitted it will be a hard battle, as most of the senators were appointed by former Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

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