Tag: religion

Army soldier’s long-time quest for religious exemption from mandated flu shot

Though the COVID-19 pandemic brought widespread resistance to the Biden-era military’s vaccine mandate, COVID isn’t the only mandated shot being resisted by some service members for religious reasons.

Army Sergeant Dan McGriff (a pseudonym) spoke to WorldNetDaily on the condition of anonymity, anticipating reprisals. He emphasized that his views do not reflect those of the Department of Defense or the Department of the Army.

In the summer of 2021 during the thick of the pandemic, the non-commissioned officer “saw the writing on the wall,” suspecting a COVID-19 shot mandate was on the way for military service members. So, in August 2021, he was not surprised to see the rollout of former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s now-rescinded mandate.

After conferring with his wife, he made the decision to seek exemption, not only from the COVID-19 shot, but for all future vaccines as well.

“Some people were getting responses back within 30 to 90 days at most, but mine took about six months, going all the way up to the Army surgeon general to be denied or accepted,” McGriff told WND. “And in March 2022, I received my initial denial.”

While the decision could be appealed, the Army sergeant said there was no guidance available. “I sent my appeal within seven days, and from that moment on I was a ghost.” He explained that even though he had approved orders for a new duty station, he was not allowed to move because he was “unvaccinated.”

During this period, he was also barred from attending schools or trainings that could have advanced his career.

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Resolution wants Indiana House of Representatives to ‘submit’ to Jesus Christ

A resolution put forth by an Indiana legislator this week asks the state’s House of Representatives to “humbly submit its ways to the Lord, Jesus Christ.”

Written by Republican Rep. Joanna King and co-authored by 20 others, House Resolution 53 – “recognizing the importance of repentance” – invokes the Founding Fathers and their supposed reliance on “almighty God” when establishing the eventual U.S. government. It then calls for the House to “individually and corporately” uphold “biblical principles.”

King submitted the resolution on Tuesday, when it was referred to the committee on courts and criminal code. As of Thursday, it hadn’t been scheduled for a hearing.

No Evansville-area lawmakers signed on as co-authors. The 21 listed included 20 Republicans and one Democrat.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution specifically bars legislators from passing any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” Indiana’s own constitution follows suit.

“No preference shall be given, by law, to any creed, religious society, or mode of worship,” Article 1, Section 4 reads in part.

In this case it’s not a law, but a resolution, which wouldn’t carry the same weight. Resolutions are largely symbolic and don’t alter existing code.

Kylie Glatfelter, a spokeswoman for King, said she’d pass on questions from the Courier & Press. As of Thursday morning, she hadn’t responded.

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Muslims Threaten to Sue Spain in Strasbourg Over Holy Week Processions, Claim They “Offend Islam.”

A group of British Muslims of Iranian origin, led by Anjem Choudary, is threatening to file a lawsuit before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

They allege that Spain’s traditional Holy Week processions are an “offense to Islam” and to the Prophet Muhammad, demanding their immediate ban.

The Muslim group intends to sue Spain in Strasbourg over these Catholic processions, with Choudary arguing that these religious events, rooted in Catholic tradition since 1978, are a “provocation” against Muslims.

“It’s an offense to the thousands of Muslims forced to live in secrecy ,” declared the leader, known for his history of radical statements. The legal challenge seeks to have Spain suspend these centuries-old celebrations, triggering a strong backlash throughout the country.

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Archaeologists May Have Just Found the Site of Jesus’s Tomb

As a literary device, this description of the burial place of Jesus Christ is effective; it offers a contrast between the site of Jesus’s death at the crucifixion site of Calvary (also called Golgotha, both derived from the Latin for “place of the skull”) and a fertile garden, brimming with life. It also provides a cyclical shape to the final chapter of the Christ narrative, which begins with his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane.

So, as storytelling, this single sentence from the Gospel of John (the most recently written of the four canonical gospels, most scholars agree) has a substantial power to its brevity. But, as a historical record of where, exactly, one of the most famous men who ever lived was laid to rest, you’d be forgiven for finding it sorely lacking in detail.

Yet, thanks to a new discovery reported in the Times of Israel, that sentence might be key to confirming where the real man at the center of the Christian faith was placed after his famous crucifixion.

As the Times notes, the site that now hosts the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is held in the Christian tradition to encompass both the crucifixion site and the tomb in which Christ was buried. As such, it is beset upon at all times by Christ-following pilgrims from across the planet, determined to worship at the site where they believe the Messiah lay dead for three days before his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

But this popularity is only part of the problem for archaeologists hoping to examine the purportedly holy site.

There was also, as the Times describes, “decades of in-fighting” between the three religious communities charged with managing the church: the Orthodox Patriarchate, the Custody of the Holy Land, and the Armenian Patriarchate. When these groups finally came to a consensus in 2019 that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre required renovations to replace the site’s 19th-century floor, a team of Italian architects with La Sapienza University saw their opportunity.

“With the renovation works, the religious communities decided to also allow archaeological excavations under the floor,” Francesca Romana Stasolla from the Sapienza University of Rome noted to the Times of Israel. The excavations have been under Stasolla’s direction since they commenced in 2022.

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‘I became like a slave’: why 43 women are suing the secretive Opus Dei Catholic group in Argentina

The first item Opus Dei gave 12-year-old Andrea Martínez was a pink dress. The second was a schedule that detailed every task for every minute of her day. Then, when she was 16, she was given a cilice – a spiked metal chain to wear around her thigh – and a whip.

In the late 1980s, Opus Dei, a secretive and ultra-conservative Catholic organisation, promised Martínez an escape from a life of poverty in rural Argentina. By attending one of their schools, they said, she would receive an education and opportunities.

“They told me I would study and progress. I thought with an education that later I would be able to help my family,” says Martínez, 50.

“But I became like a slave. They treated me like a slave, without any capacity to think or act or do.”

Martínez, along with dozens of other women in Argentina, has accused Opus Dei – which has a presence in more than 70 countries but is strongest in Spain, Italy and Latin America – of coercing them as children and adolescents into a life of domestic servitude.

They say they were forced into working up to 12-hour days, cooking and cleaning for the elite members, without pay.

The women also say they faced extreme control, their letters were censored, and they were banned from reading anything but children’s books or religious texts. When they eventually escaped, the women say they were left without money, clothes or qualifications.

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Massachusetts Couple Accused of ‘Kidnapping’ Their Own Five Children from State Custody

A Massachusetts couple is facing serious charges after allegedly kidnapping their five children, who had been placed in the custody of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF).

Isael Rivera, 31, and Ruth Encarnacion, 30, were located by Fitchburg Police in early March, after a multi-state manhunt.

The couple is accused of taking the children across state lines in an attempt to evade DCF intervention.

Authorities believe the family fled Massachusetts shortly before the state attempted to enforce child protective measures, according to WCVB 5.
Rivera, the biological father of four of the five children, was arraigned last week in Fitchburg District Court. A not-guilty plea was entered on his behalf, and he is currently being held without bail, WHDH reported.

Encarnacion, the mother of all five children, is scheduled to be arraigned this week and faces five counts of kidnapping a minor by a relative. A not-guilty plea has also been entered on her behalf.

According to law enforcement, the family went missing just as DCF prepared to remove the children from Encarnacion’s care on February 27.

Encarnacion’s sister reported her missing days later on March 3, citing a lack of contact since February 26. DCF officially reported the five children missing on March 5, triggering a state and federal search.

Court documents indicate that DCF had opened a case against the couple in February after a pediatrician flagged signs of neglect involving the youngest child, a 9-month-old.

DCF intervened shortly thereafter, but by then, the family had reportedly left Massachusetts.

According to unconfirmed reports, they told their pediatrician they were skipping vaccines for their baby.

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On Palm Sunday, Israel Bombs The Only Christian Hospital In Gaza

Claiming it held a “command and control center used by Hamas,” Israel chose Palm Sunday to bomb the only Christian hospital in war-shattered Gaza. It was also the last fully-functioning hospital in Gaza City. No casualties from the bombing per se were reported by Gaza’s civil emergency service. However, a child who’d been hospitalized for a head wound died from “the rushed evacuation process,” said the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, which runs the al Ahli Arab Hospital. The diocese is part of the Anglican Church. 

Citing Gaza Civil Defense, Middle East Eye reports that the bombs resulted in “the destruction of the surgery building and the oxygen generation station for the intensive care units.” St. Philip’s Church was one of multiple nearby buildings that also suffered damage. The IDF attributed the low casualty count to its effort to “mitigate harm to civilians or to the hospital compound, including issuing advanced warnings in the area of the terror infrastructure, the use of precise munitions, and aerial surveillance.”

A local journalist told BBC that the IDF called an emergency room doctor and urged the hospital’s immediate evacuation, saying “You have only 20 minutes to leave.” A previously-injured Khalil Bakr said he and his three wounded daughters — two amputees and a third “full of platinum plates” — managed to get out of the hospital just a couple minutes before destruction rained down.  

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Controversial mosque planning to build Islamic city already has sprawling neighborhood in Texas

A Texas mosque that has sparked controversy over its plans to build a city for Muslims outside of Dallas already has an existing neighborhood, The Daily Mail can reveal.

The Islamic community in Plano is already home to hundreds of Allah’s followers, and features expensive, two story homes, a shopping center and a clinic. 

The East Plano Islamic Center or EPIC, intends to break ground on a town for its followers near the City of Josephine- about 40 minutes away from the existing mosque. 

EPIC City, as the project is known, would be anchored by a brand new mosque and include 1,000 homes, green spaces and schools for the people of that faith.

However, the future of the EPIC City is in jeopardy, after hundreds of locals have fiercely spoken out against the mosque’s efforts- storming a public meeting where officials were considering whether to grant EPIC building permits. 

Additionally, Gov. Greg Abbott has promised the development will ‘never see the light of day‘ while accusing EPIC of breaking the law and practicing Sharia law. 

Even though not a single person has been arrested or charged in connection to Abbott’s many accusations about what he claims is happening at EPIC, hysteria is at a fever pitch, with mosque-goers getting death threats.

But even before a single brick of the planned city is laid, EPIC already has a sprawling neighborhood around it in Plano. 

The green domed house of worship is massive, large enough to accommodate 3,200 worshippers, making it one of the largest mosques in the Lone Star State.

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Taliban morality enforcers arrest men for having the wrong hairstyle or skipping mosque, UN says

The Taliban morality police in Afghanistan have detained men and their barbers over hairstyles and others for missing prayers at mosques during the holy month of Ramadan, a U.N. report said Thursday, six months after laws regulating people’s conduct came into effect.

The Vice and Virtue Ministry published laws last August covering many aspects everyday life in Afghanistan, including public transport, music, shaving and celebrations. Most notably, the ministry issued a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public.

That same month, a top U.N. official warned the laws provided a “distressing vision” for the country’s future by adding to existing employment, education, and dress code restrictions on women and girls. Taliban officials have rejected U.N. concerns about the morality laws.

Thursday’s report, from the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, said in the first 6 months of the laws’ implementation, over half of detentions made under it concerned “either men not having the compliant beard length or hairstyle, or barbers providing non-compliant beard trimming or haircuts.”

The report said that the morality police regularly detained people arbitrarily “without due process and legal protections.”

During the holy fasting month of Ramadan, men’s attendance at mandated congregational prayers was closely monitored, leading at times to arbitrary detention of those who didn’t show up, the report added.

The U.N. mission said that both sexes were negatively affected, particularly people with small businesses such as private education centers, barbers and hairdressers, tailors, wedding caterers and restaurants, leading to a reduction or total loss of income and employment opportunities.

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‘Not a cult’: Holy war erupts as judge bans mom from taking daughter to Christian church

A mother whose constitutional rights were violated by a Maine judge hearing a custody dispute has taken the fight to the state Supreme Court.

The case involves a radical ruling from Jennifer Nofsinger, a judge who heard a custody case, who ordered that the mother was not allowed to take her 11-year-old daughter to an evangelical Christian church.

That was based on “objections” from the child’s father, who like the mother and daughter was not identified in the report from Liberty Counsel, which is working on the case.

Chairman Mat Staver said, “Calvary Chapel is not a cult. This custody order banning a mother from taking her child to a Christian church because of its biblical teachings regarding marriage and human sexuality violates the First Amendment. The custody order cannot prohibit the mother from taking her daughter to church. The implications of this order pose a serious threat to religious freedom.”

The judge granted the father, who objects to the Christian teachings of the church, “the sole right to govern the girl’s religious activities.”

The high court is being asked to reverse the “unlawful custody order” and to restore the mother’s First Amendment right to pass on her religious beliefs

The judge adopted the ideology of a leftist teacher from California who was hired by the father. That teacher, Janja Lalich, told the judge “that cults usually have a charismatic, authoritarian leader who teach about a ‘transcendent belief system’ that offers answers, and ‘promises some sort of salvation.’ She further testified that she had ‘studied’ Calvary Chapel Church and found that the church’s pastor was a ‘charismatic’ speaker, spoke ‘authoritatively’ in his messages, and that he asserted his messages were objective truth.,” Liberty Counsel reported.

That meant, Lalich claimed, the church was “cultic.”

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