Tag: religion

Questions Mount Over Viral Claims of Apocalyptic Iran War Briefings in the Military

A viral claim alleges that as many as 200 U.S. troops at 50 military installations were told the war in Iran is meant to hasten the Biblical end times and the return of Christ. But is the story true?

While the claims have been breathlessly repeated online—and even by some major outlets—key red flags have been ignored, as Americans hit “repost” on a story that feels all too plausible in the current news environment. The truth, however, is far less clear in this rabbit hole of uncertainty, which may reveal more about the fractured nature of modern society than anything else.

Apocalypse Claims

The story first appeared in a Monday evening report by Jonathan Larsen on his Substack, in which he relayed a claim by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) that it had received reports of apocalyptic religious briefings on the Iran war conducted by military leadership across more than 40 units stationed at roughly 30 installations. MRFF highlighted a single email, which they claim is representative of over 110 incidents, all of which are being kept confidential to avoid reprisals. 

The email in question details the account of a non-commissioned officer (NCO) in a unit outside of Iran, who claims that his commander told him to instruct his troops that President Trump is anointed by God and that the Iran war is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy relating to Armageddon and the return of Christ. At the end of the email, the NCO states that these actions violated their constitutional oath and threatened morale and unit cohesion.

Larsen’s reporting provides the first clues that MRFF president and founder, Mikey Weinstein, isn’t your typical polished non-profit figurehead. Quotes attributed to Weinstein include words such as “wet dream” and “shit”—unusual language selection for a representative of an advocacy group—as he explains his issues with Christian fundamentalist proselytization in the military, and how that violates the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Weinstein also notes that the group has received similar complaints from service members during previous conflicts involving Israel. In a lengthier statement at the close of the article, Weinstein refers to President Trump as “the narcissistic, sociopathic, orange, POS tRump.”

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation

On Tuesday morning, a post on the Military Religious Freedom Foundation website expanded on the original claim, now indicating knowledge of 200 complaints involving apocalyptic preaching about the Iran conflict from 50 installations.

A look at the organization’s website reveals more of Weinstein’s style: articles on the site generally feature provocative titles and dramatic, politically themed AI-generated art. A link to a video of Weinstein in his car, letting loose with profanity-laced opinions about Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, appeared on the site’s front page. In style and demeanor, the website is at odds with what one typically expects of a straight-laced advocacy group.

Previously having served as an Air Force JAG officer, Weinstein says he started the group as his son experienced anti-Semitic bias while attending the Air Force Academy, when students were pressured to see the film The Passion of the Christ. Critics have noted that Weinstein draws a relatively large salary from the organization, accounting for almost half of its 2024 expenses at $364,392, which he has previously defended as commensurate with his legal training and extensive work hours.

The Sole Source for Iran “Armageddon” Claims

More than any idiosyncrasies in the organization’s presentation, the most unusual part of this story is that MRFF is the sole source of the recent “Armageddon” allegations. Despite alleged complaints from hundreds of soldiers across dozens of installations, no public faces—or even anonymous internet postings—have appeared that offer support for the claim, and no journalists with other organizations have indicated having a direct whistleblower source on the matter.

One of the largest organizations performing similar work is the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). With an operating budget over 15 times that of MRFF, the FFRF promoted MRFF’s claims on Tuesday, prompting The Debrief to inquire as to whether they had received any similar reports that could corroborate the story.

“We have interacted with MRFF before,” Chris Line, Legal Counsel for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, told The Debrief. “It would be surprising if they were making this complaint up, but we have not been able to verify their complaints yet and haven’t received any complaints from service members ourselves.”

When pressed on whether the organization found it unusual that a comparatively smaller group has been the only one to receive such complaints, and that nothing corroborating the claims has appeared publicly, FFRF conceded to The Debrief that it was difficult to explain.

“The volume of complaints that MRFF has reported is hard to believe given that we haven’t heard from anyone about it ourselves, but the lack of corresponding social media posts, etc. is not,” Line told The Debrief.

“We’re very used to dealing with anonymous complainants who face potential negative repercussions for speaking out about state/church issues,” Line added. “We’ve received complaints from military personnel in the past, and the concern about repercussions can be heightened in that kind of environment, especially given the current administration.”

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Education board members challenge Islamist demands to change history lessons

A paid representative for the designated terror organization and Islam-pushing Council on American-Islamic Relations has called for Texas, in its state education system, to teach that one-third of all slaves in America were Muslim, enslaved, and killed for their Muslim faith, erase the Mayflower Compact, eliminate Columbus Day, teach that the Alamo was influenced by Islam and honors Islamic architecture and more.

Not happening, at least according to two members of the state Board of Education who challenged the accuracy of the claims, openly opposed a “jihadist agenda being forced on our children,” and were skeptical about the benefits of teaching children about Muhammad’s decision to marry a six-year-old and consummate the marriage when the little girl was just nine.

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US commanders tell troops Iran war ‘God’s divine plan,’ Trump anointed to ‘ignite Armageddon’: Report

Independent journalist Jonathan Larsen reported on 2 March that numerous US service members have lodged dozens of complaints saying senior officers are calling the war on Iran part of “God’s divine plan,” with claims that US President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus” to spark Armageddon.

“President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” one combat-unit commander allegedly told troops during a readiness briefing, according to a complaint submitted to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

The complaint is one of more than 110 logged within 48 hours, spanning over 40 units across at least 30 military installations, with soldiers telling the MRFF that commanders are describing the Iran campaign as divinely ordained and tied to the Book of Revelation.

The Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) stated they were writing on behalf of 15 troops, including at least 11 Christians, one Muslim, and one Jew, and described the remarks as “so toxic and over the line” that they shocked those present. 

The email sent to Larsen argued that such rhetoric “destroy[s] morale and unit cohesion and [is] in violation of the oaths we swore to support the Constitution.”

MRFF President Mikey Weinstein said the over 110 reports share “one damn thing in freaking common” – what he called “the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders” who view the war as “biblically-sanctioned” and a sign of the approaching “End Times.”

Weinstein warned that commanders celebrating how “bloody all of this must become” in order to align with “fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology” may be violating constitutional and military law. 

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Cardinal found with phone during secret conclave to elect Pope Leo, book says

The secret conclave that elected Pope Leo head of the Catholic Church in May 2025 was interrupted when one of the 133 cardinals involved was found carrying a cellphone, a massive security breach, a book released on March 1 revealed.

As the clerics were preparing to take their first vote inside the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, which was fitted with jamming equipment to prevent outside communications, security officials picked up the signal of an active mobile connection.

The cardinals stared at each other incredulously, then one of the older clerics discovered he had a phone in his pocket and handed it over, according to The Election of Pope Leo XIV, a new book by two long-time Vatican correspondents.

The book does not name the cardinal or suggest he had any motive for keeping his phone, saying the moment left him “disoriented and distressed”.

Security breach was ‘better than fiction’

The scene was “unimaginable even for a film and never before seen in the history of modern conclaves”, wrote authors Gerard O’Connell and Elisabetta Pique.

One such film, the 2024 hit Conclave, imagined a tangled web of intrigues during the fictional selection of a pontiff. The unprecedented discovery of a phone in 2025 was in its own way more startling than anything portrayed in that movie, O’Connell told Reuters. “Reality (was) better than fiction,” he said.

Clerics taking part in a conclave take a vow not to communicate with the outside world and surrender their phones and all other communication devices for the duration of the proceedings, which can last for days.

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Ukrainian Christians Go Underground in Face of Persecution and Church Seizures

Some Ukrainian Christians have been forced to retreat to the “catacombs” to worship because of persecution and church seizures, the Daily Caller reported Friday.

Furthermore, the embattled Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is in danger of being shut down under a 2024 law prohibiting churches from having any ties to Russia.

The UOC — which, according to the Daily Caller, “traces its roots to the 17th-century Russian Orthodox Church (ROC)” — claims to have full autonomy from Moscow except for its canonical relationship. (For instance, sacraments performed by the UOC are considered valid in the ROC and vice versa.)

However, wrote the Daily Caller, “Opponents claim the UOC’s divine liturgy often includes Russian propaganda — such as prayers for Patriarch Kirill, head of the ROC, and vocal supporter of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

OCU vs. UOC

The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which has no Russian connections, benefits enormously from the government’s antipathy toward the UOC. This is not surprising since the OCU was, at Kyiv’s instigation, “artificially constructed” in 2018 from two schismatic Orthodox branches to serve “the political interests of the government,” Metropolitan Feodosii, head of the Cherkasy UOC, told the Daily Caller.

UOC churches are being seized and transferred to the OCU, with priests and parishioners often brutalized in the process, Feodosii and other UOC leaders allege.

The Daily Caller recounted one such incident:

Nearly a dozen UOC parishioners described to the Caller an alleged violent takeover of St. Michael’s Cathedral in Cherkasy in October 2024.

Parishioners claimed more than 500 men — many wearing masks, camouflage and armed with crowbars and bolt cutters — arrived just after liturgy ended. The men allegedly used tear gas and trapped nearby residents in their homes before parishioners briefly fended them off.

One parishioner showed the Caller bruises still visible on his legs. Another claimed her husband was beaten so badly he could not even talk, and he suffered “many fractures of his bones.” The woman’s youngest child was so traumatized by the event that he went almost a whole year only addressing himself as “kitten” instead of his given name, she told the Caller.

Feodosii allegedly suffered burns and a concussion during the fracas and ended up in the hospital.

“Parishioners alleged priests from the OCU stood along the fence laughing with the police as they waited to take over the property,” wrote the Daily Caller.

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Huckabee Defends Pollard Meeting, Says God Promised Israel the Entire Middle East

During a nearly two-and-a-half-hour interview with Tucker Carlson, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee defended meeting with American traitor Jonathan Pollard, who spied for Israel while a Navy intelligence officer and landed in prison for 30 years.

The New York Times revealed the meeting in November and called it “secret,” which Huckabee denied to Carlson, claiming that he meets with people all the time.

Huckabee also defended the historical and theological claim that present day Israel is the Israel of the Bible, as have GOP U.S. Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Huckabee said the Bible would justify Israel’s seizing territory in the Middle East from the Euphrates River in Iraq to the Nile in Egypt.

The genesis of the Pollard discussion was the revelation in the Times.

The meeting was secret, the Times reported, and for good reason. No other American envoy thought meeting with Pollard was a good idea.

“The highly unusual meeting caught some U.S. officials by surprise, and appeared to be a sharp break with years of precedent for American diplomats,” the newspaper disclosed:

The New York Times learned of the meeting from three U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information. When The Times asked Mr. Pollard about the meeting, he confirmed it.

The meeting was not on Huckabee’s schedule, which “alarmed” the CIA station chief.

And the top U.S. spy in Israel isn’t the only American official that Huckabee kept in the dark, the Times continued:

The White House was not aware of the meeting in advance, according to a White House official and two people briefed on the matter. The White House official also said that senior officials there were alarmed when they learned it had taken place.

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It’s Not Racist To Say Muslims Can’t Tell Us To Reject Dogs

Shortly after Nerdeen Kiswani, a pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist activist and organizer, said on X that pet dogs have no place in homes because “they are unclean,” several other videos surfaced reportedly demonstrating Muslim attitudes toward dogs.

There’s the video purportedly showing a Muslim threatening to behead a woman’s dog. And the video of “Sneako,” a Muslim streamer in Miami, telling Americans, “F-ck your dog. … Dogs are haram. … Dogs are gross.” And then the video allegedly capturing Muslim kids torturing a lone dog. Added to those were reports of Morocco engaging in a campaign to slaughter three million dogs ahead of the 2030 World Cup.  

The obvious conclusion is that Muslim culture does not like dogs and has no qualms about being cruel toward them.  

But the issue is not about dogs specifically. It is about Islam forcing Americans — who have been dog-loving and dog-using people since the Mayflower — to change our habits and our way of life in order to accommodate Muslims. It is about conquest and control. As Dana Loesch put it, it is primarily about submission, with Muslims pushing the boundaries of what they can do in America.  

In cases like this, it is very important to see who supports the suppressors and who supports the people being told to submit. Unsurprisingly, Democrats haven’t reacted with the common-sense, American response: If you don’t like dogs, don’t have a dog. But we are not going to tell Americans they can’t have dogs or that they cannot have their dogs in their own homes.

Instead, leftists from Jake Tapper to AOC have called Congressman Randy Fine of Florida a “bigot” for responding to Kiswani’s original tweet, with a sentence most Americans would agree with: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.” And the reactions have gone well beyond that. Hakeem Jefferies has promised retribution if the Democrats retake the House in November. Ahead of that threatened retribution, Democrats (and some gutless wonder Republicans, if rumors are to be believed) want Fine to be censured.  

It’s important to understand what is unfolding. It is easy to see this as just another example of the left being the left and throwing down the “Racist!” card because that is largely what their entire deck consists of. But it is more than that. The old legal maximum “Silence means consent” (qui tacet consentire videtur) is still true. Every Democrat who has only been able to try and spin this as another example of xenophobic, Islamophobic conservatives proving their xenophobia and Islamophobia is advertising that he is an ally of Islamists — Islamists who, if given the chance, will exert power to change our way of life.  

The proof of this is not the fact that Islam is currently the fastest growing religion in the world, while also rising in the United States — religion obviously changed the Roman Empire after Constantine, Mexico after the conquistadors toppled the Aztecs, the Christian Middle East after the Muslims conquered it, so of course an Islam-majority United States isn’t going to be the United States we inherited. Nor is the proof that blue cities like New York are now blasting the Muslim call to prayer, changing their own rules to allow the disturbance. The proof can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. 

Dearborn, with a population of about 100,000 people, is the city whose Muslim mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, named a street after Osama Siblani, reportedly a public defender of U.S.-designated terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. He also publicly told a Christian man he “was not welcome” in the city when the man expressed mild disapproval of Hammoud’s plan. Hammoud also said that he would throw a parade when the man left Dearborn.

Telling Americans to leave Dearborn seems to be habitual for its Muslim overlords: Muslim agitators shouted down one of Nick Shirley’s interviews in Dearborn, after which Shirley was told that “racists” were “not welcome.” Dearborn was also the locale where Muslims shouted, “Death to America!” so it’s not surprising that Islamists would tell Americans to leave what they clearly see as a conquered city.

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More Christians Killed in Nigeria as Media and Democrats Deny Genocide

If mainstream media and American Democrats and liberals are correct that the mass killing of Christians in Nigeria is merely a conflict over grazing land rather than a genocide, then why are so many Christians not only being killed but also abducted? Abduction has never been a defining feature of disputes between herders and farmers in other countries.

In the past twenty-four hours, more reports of the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria have emerged. Priests and laypeople on the ground are posting videos and impassioned cries for help on social media.

Al Jazeera has said Christian genocide is a myth, while mainstream U.S. media have described it as a Republican conspiracy theory and lies made up by President Trump.

Apparently, people in Nigeria have fallen so deeply for Republican lies that they mistakenly believe their own families and parishioners are being killed.

On Thursday, February 19, an armed group invaded the Tungan Duste community in Anka Local Government Area. Although the attack occurred late last week, casualty figures were officially confirmed by police on Monday, February 23.

Thirty-eight people were killed, and numerous residents, primarily women and children, were abducted. Police stated they had prior intelligence about the attack, but were unable to reach the area in time due to poor road access.

Simultaneous attacks also took place late last week in Kebbi State, with official reports and statements from the African Union released over the last 48 hours, February 22–23. Thirty-three people were killed in those raids.

In Taraba State, particularly in Mchia and Donga, reports emerging as of February 23 describe a worsening crisis in the southern region. Ten people were killed in a recent massacre in the village of Mchia.

Church leaders from the Wukari Diocese held a press briefing on February 18, calling for an end to the ongoing attacks on Christians by Fulani militias.

They also released a separate statement detailing that more than 100 people have been killed in the region since early February and that over 200 communities and churches have been destroyed.

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Historic London Church BURNS To The Ground Amid SILENCE From Government

A massive fire ravaged the historic Kings Hall Methodist Church in Southall, West London, late Sunday night, reducing much of the over 100-year-old building to ashes. 

Dozens of firefighters and ten engines battled the inferno for hours, but the damage was extensive, erasing a piece of Britain’s Christian heritage in a matter of moments.

Footage from the scene shows flames bursting through windows and thick smoke billowing into the night sky, as crowds gathered to watch the destruction unfold. 

The church, a community staple since the early 1900s, survived world wars and countless storms—only to succumb to this suspicious blaze. Local reports confirm the fire started around 9:30 p.m., with emergency services flooding the area after multiple 911 calls.

Witnesses and online commentators wasted no time pointing out the eerie pattern: churches across the UK and beyond keep going up in flames, with little outcry from authorities or mainstream outlets. 

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