Tag: religion

Ukraine’s Two Wars

As the Russia–Ukraine conflict continues well into its third year, we naturally focus on the military struggle. A less visible but equally important battle is being waged within Ukraine’s religious communities. This conflict reveals the complex interplay between faith, nationalism, state power, and the ongoing war. 

Ukraine has historically been at the center of the Eastern European Orthodox world. It is on the banks of the Dnieper River in Kyiv that Eastern European Orthodoxy was born in 988 as a Slavic offshoot of Byzantium’s Greek Orthodoxy. It adopted Slavonic, a proto-Slavic tongue, as its liturgical language—a language the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the largest religious organization in the country, still uses. 

In 2019, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was founded in accordance with then President Petro Poroshenko’s “one nation, one church” vision. Poroshenko believed that an independent, national church was essential for national security, as opposed to the traditional UOC church, which was independent in governance but retained its legacy ecclesiastic connection with the Russian Orthodox Church based in Moscow. One way that the OCU displayed its nationalism was by replacing Slavonic with Ukrainian as its liturgical language. 

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the Ukrainian government announced a series of measures identifying the UOC  with the Russian Orthodox Church and seeking repressive measures against it. On December 2, 2022, during his nightly address President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a decree that banned the activities of religious organizations “affiliated with centers of influence” in Russia and said that state services would examine the links between the UOC and the Russian church. 

If you were a Ukrainian patriot, President Zelensky signaled, the UOC could not possibly be your spiritual home. 

Shortly after Zelensky’s speech, I attended liturgy at the Russian church in Geneva, where I was visiting, hoping to better understand the overlay of the war and religious identity. There, I met both Russians and Ukrainians, including Ukrainians from the Russian-speaking east and ethnic Ukrainians from the west. I met a veteran of the Ukrainian special forces, the SBU, who shared that he fought in the Donbas in 2014 and later went to Russia on a spiritual visit. He was highly critical of what he claimed was the persecution by the Ukrainian government of his church at home, the UOC. Clearly, there was more to it than President Zelensky’s narrative portraying the UOC as a political fifth column—a narrative echoed by the media in Europe and the United States.  

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Report: Tim Walz Praised Hitler-Supporting Imam as ‘Master Teacher,’ Contradicting Campaign

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz praised radical Imam Asad Zaman, who had posted content promoting Hitler, as a “master teacher” — contradicting claims by the Kamala Harris campaign that Walz had no personal relationship with him.

As Breitbart News noted last week, citing reporting by Gabe Kaminsky in the Washington Examiner, Walz “appeared several times with a local Muslim leader who has justified Hamas terrorist violence against Israel and once shared a pro-Hitler film on social media.” Walz’s Muslim American Society of Minnesota also received grants from the state.

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UK Government Set to Ban Silent Prayer Outside Abortion Clinics

As the crackdown on free speech accelerates, the UK government is set to ban people silently praying in their heads outside abortion clinics.

MPs voted for legislation last year that would ban silent prayer within ‘buffer zones’ 150 metres around the location of a clinic or hospital providing abortion services.

However, this has not come come into force and guidance was subsequently published allowing silent prayer within ‘safe access zones’ where activists would be able to hand out leaflets and engage in conversations with women considering abortions.

The guidance stated that, “Silent prayer, being the engagement of the mind and thought in prayer towards God, is protected as an absolute right under the Human Rights Act 1998 and should not, on its own, be considered to be an offence under any circumstances.”

The issue shot to public attention in March 2023 when campaigner Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested by police for silently praying in front of a British Pregnancy Advisory Services clinic that was subject to a ‘buffer zone’ order.

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61-Year-Old Brit Gets 18 Month Prison Sentence For Chanting “Who The F**k Is Allah”

A 61-year-old man in the UK was jailed for 18 months for chanting “who the fuck is Allah” and telling police officers “you’re not English anymore” during a protest outside Downing Street.

Yes really.

The sentence handed out to David Spring is the latest shocking example of how low the bar has now been set in terms of free speech in response to rioting that occurred after the murder of three girls in Southport last month.

Spring attended a demonstration of around 700 people in London on July 31 which turned disorderly.

Police bodycam footage that was played in court showed Spring calling police officers “cunts,” making “hostile gestures” and joining in with chants of “who the fuck is Allah” and “you’re not English anymore.”

While Spring’s behavior could be described as offensive and unruly, the fact that he will spend the next year and a half behind bars for saying mean words exemplifies how the UK has slipped into extreme authoritarianism in the space of just two weeks.

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Former Mormon reveals how she was trained to be the ‘perfect trad wife’ from age 12

An ex-Mormon has lifted the lid on the unusual lessons she was taught at the church when she was just 12 years old so that she could be the ‘perfect’ stay-at-home wife.

Alyssa Grenfell, 31, grew up in an ultra-strict household but fled from Utah to New York in 2017 – and has since been focusing on reclaiming her body following the move in her late 20s.

The former member of the Mormon church has recently been sharing tidbits about her transformation and her journey to freedom.

Most recently, she took to YouTube to unveil the various teachings that were told to the children of the Mormon church – adding that they were prepped to become wives from a very early age.

She admitted that she was forced to learn how to cook, clean and sew – while also being forced to remain abstinent. 

Alyssa captioned the video: ‘Brainwashed Mormon Mommies?’ 

In it, she discussed the rise of ‘trad wives’ – a term used to describe women who choose to live a tradition lifestyle that seems them spending their days cooking, cleaning, wearing modest clothing, and being submissive to their husbands. 

Trad wives have become increasingly visible in recent months as many women boast about reverting to the traditional roles of housewives, largely practiced in the fifties and sixties.

‘I was trained to be a wife and mother when I was about 12,’ Alyssa said at the beginning of the video. 

She then explained that the women within the community were forced to learn how to become the perfect wife – beginning with cooking. 

Alyssa noted that as women they were taught to make spaghetti and told to serve it to the boys. 

She explained: ‘This is the bread and butter of what I was raised on. It reminds me of how many different times I would go to young women’s activities and the boys would be playing basketball and having a great time and the young women would be learning a skill like cooking or sewing. 

‘I have one distinct memory where we learned to plan a meal and we made spaghetti and the boys were playing basketball.

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Philly DA’s comments about ‘flat-out unscientific’ people come back to haunt in lawsuit over COVID-19 vaccine mandate, possible ‘anti-religious hostility’

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the progressive Philadelphia District Attorney must face a lawsuit by an Orthodox Jewish former Assistant District Attorney for denying her religious exemption to the office’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate. Because it was unclear whether the office’s policy was rooted in hostility toward religion, the matter was sent for a jury to decide.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit unanimously overturned a lower court ruling that dismissed Rachel Spivack’s case against Larry Krasner (D), the elected District Attorney of Philadelphia whose 2022 impeachment was overturned as constitutionally unsound. As a result, the case will move toward trial.

The panel included Barack Obama appointee U.S. Circuit Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, and Joe Biden appointees U.S. Circuit Judges Arianna J. Freeman and Tamika Montgomery-Reeves. Freeman penned the 42-page ruling for the panel.

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Push to force religious schools to hire gay teachers in South Australia

A South Australian legislator is set to introduce a bill that would mandate religious schools to employ homosexual teachers.

Robert Simms, an openly gay Greens member of the upper house of South Australia’s Parliament, announced his intention to propose this bill in August, aiming to abolish exemptions for religious institutions.

“It is outrageous that in 21st-century South Australia, a gay teacher working in a religious school can be in fear of losing their job simply because of their sexuality… Surely all South Australians deserve equal protection before the law?” Simms told The Advertiser.

Simms also expressed his frustration with the Federal Government’s “slow progress” on the issue, urging the South Australian government to take the initiative.

Conversely, Warwick D’Silva, national president of the Australian Family Association (AFA), criticised the proposal.

“Robert Simms’s plan to remove current exemptions for faith-based schools from South Australia’s anti-discrimination law smacks of hypocrisy,” D’Silva stated. He questioned if Simms would support legislation limiting his own party’s employment freedoms similarly.

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Cops Threaten To Take Kids From Family Terrorized by Anti-Christian Reddit Group

J.D. Lott and his wife Britney were eating lunch with their eight kids on April 30 when he missed a call on his cellphone. The family was three years into a cross-country, home-schooling, Instagram-documented road trip in a bus they refashioned into an RV. A day earlier they had been staying at a Florida campground. The next day, they were in Georgia on their way to meet friends—or so they thought.

Half an hour later, the missed caller sent a text saying that they were from the Department of Children and Families (DCF) in Florida. It continued: “Please respond we need to follow up and verify the children are safe. If we cannot complete this we will have to see an Order To Take Into Custody which is enforceable nationwide. Please work with us so we do not have to do that. Thank you.”

A nationwide manhunt? With the possibility of having their children taken away?

“It’s like a knife to the heart,” J.D. Lott tells Reason.

The Lotts quickly pieced together what was happening: Online trolls had figured out how to weaponize child protective services.

The Lotts’ Instagram account, @AmericanFamilyRoadTrip, has over half a million followers. On Reddit there’s a group, FundieSnarkUncensored, that makes fun of people it believes are Christian Fundamentalists. The Lotts are often the target of the group’s criticisms. Lately, the snark had been getting darker.

When Britney had her eighth child, Boone, two weeks earlier and posted a video with him, the Reddit group started armchair diagnosing him. They said the healthy newborn had “severe sunburn,” “was lethargic,” and had “jaundice.”

Participants on the Reddit group whipped themselves into a frenzy, convinced that Boone was in grave danger and his parents were to blame. They used a screenshot of a video the Lotts had posted from their Florida campground stay to geolocate the family. Then someone called the local Florida DCF office and repeated, verbatim, the accusations posted on Reddit: The newborn was sunburnt, lethargic, and jaundiced.

A county caseworker drove to the campground and was upset the family wasn’t there. She reached the Lotts using a phone number the campground supplied, and J.D. Lott explained the strange situation to her.

“We have a group of people on Reddit that we’ve discovered are dedicated to defaming us,” he said.

The caseworker seemed to take this all in, and the Lotts, though shaken, thought everything was fine—until another call came in at lunchtime.

A supervisor at the DCF office decided the case was critical. According to J.D. Lott, he threatened to issue a nationwide order to take the kids into custody.

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LA CITY COUNCIL CONSIDERS FUNDING FORMER IDF SOLDIERS TO PATROL ITS STREETS

THE LOS ANGELES City Council is considering whether to give public funds to private, armed security patrols to protect its religious communities, following a protest against the marketing of West Bank settlement properties at an LA synagogue last month that turned violent. 

In the immediate wake of the incident, city council members introduced a motion to give $1 million to several Jewish security organizations that would expand their work around Jewish schools, religious institutions, and neighborhoods. 

Magen Am, a nonprofit that runs armed patrol services and firearm training programs for the Jewish community, was named as the recipient of $350,000 in the motion. The group is largely made up of former Israeli soldiers, along with U.S. military veterans, according to the group’s website and social media posts, and was founded by a former MMA fighter with ties to the National Rifle Association. The majority of the former Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the group are “lone soldiers,” according to several reports, the term for individuals with no direct ties to the state of Israel who immigrated there to serve in the nation’s military.

The city council has since introduced a new motion, which would give $2 million to various faith groups that want to hire additional security and does not mention Magen Am or any recipients by name. But LA activists are still concerned that city funds will go to an armed group with hard-line political stances.

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SATANISTS to volunteer in Florida schools following signing of new law that allows religious personnel to be employed in public schools

Public schools in Florida might soon be swarmed with members of the Satanic Temple as Gov. Ron DeSantis has put the call out for more school counselors following the signing of a state law allowing religious chaplains into public schools amid staffing shortages.

House Bill 931, which came into effect this July, permits outside organizations to provide “additional counseling and support to students.” DeSantis has made it clear that the law is intended as a means to legally reintroduce Christian values into public education.

However, the bill has left the implementation of chaplaincy programs to individual school districts and only requires schools to list a volunteer’s religion “if any.” (Related: Satanic temple in Texas files lawsuit demanding “religious right” to sacrifice babies through abortion.)

The Satanic Temple sees this as an opportunity to challenge the unconstitutional favoritism toward Christianity. Satanic Temple co-founder and spokesperson Lucien Greaves argued that if Christian chaplains are granted access to students, then so should their members, to maintain the separation of church and state.

“You have theocrats pushing further and further, signing unconstitutional bills into law, and they realize there’s no consequence,” Greaves said. “They’re giving everybody the impression that these types of things are legal, this is just the environment we’re living in. And in that way, they’re really numbing people to when these things actually do take effect, or when they are upheld by a corrupt judge who’s just playing partisan politics.”

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