Tag: religion

Attacks on US churches tripled since 2018, often politically motivated, report says

Attacks on churches in the United States have nearly tripled in the last four years, and many have political motivations, according to a new study.

Evangelical activist group and think tank The Family Research Council (FRC) argues that criminal acts of vandalism against a church, among other forms of attacks, are “symptomatic of a collapse in societal reverence and respect for houses of worship and religion.” With an emphasis on Christianity, FRC researched the trend of criminal acts against churches over the last four years.

FRC utilized FBI data for its report, which groups Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox and “other Christians” under Christianity.

The report released earlier this month found a significant upward trend in attacks or “acts of hostility.”

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Suspect Behind NYPD New Year’s Eve Attack Was on FBI Radar – Trevor Bickford a Recent Convert to Islam

A rookie NYPD officer was stabbed in the head Saturday night near Times Square amid New Year’s Eve celebrations.

A second NYPD officer was struck with a pipe or a blunt object.

The suspect was shot by police and taken into custody.

The police officer was rushed to a nearby hospital and is expected to recover.

According to the New York Post, the injured police officer was a rookie on his first day on the job.

The suspect, 19-year-old Trevor Bickford of Wells, Maine, was shot in the shoulder and taken to a nearby hospital.

According to FOX News Trevor Bickford was on the FBI radar and recently converted to Islam.

A high-level police source also tells Fox News Digital that Bickford was being watched by the FBI’s counterterrorism task force in the weeks leading up to Saturday’s attack. The source also said Bickford recently converted to Islam and a tipster claimed he had expressed interest in going to Afghanistan.

The first cop, a rookie on his first night of policing, was slashed in the head, prompting another nearby officer to shoot Bickford. That officer was also struck, but he was not seriously injured. The first officer, identified by authorities only as Paul, is expected to recover.

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Tacoma bible college linked to alleged ‘cult’ loses GI Bill approval after FBI raid

A Tacoma seminary program associated with a chain of churches raided by the FBI earlier this year has lost approval to receive federal Veterans Affairs education funds. Former members have described the chain as a cult that defrauds soldiers.

In late June, the FBI served search warrants at several House of Prayer Christian Church locations near military bases, mostly in the Southeast. A former church minister told The News Tribune the Tacoma location on South 54th Street was constructed in 2004 and targeted soldiers at nearby Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

A JBLM spokesperson told The News Tribune this summer the base was aware of the House of Prayer and referred questions to federal law enforcement. The FBI’s Seattle field office confirmed “court-authorized law enforcement activity” at the church but declined to provide additional details.

A spokesperson for the House of Prayer declined to comment on the investigation.

Current and former members have accused the House of Prayer of draining veterans’ GI Bill funds by perpetually enrolling them in bogus seminary classes and pressuring them to gain 100% VA disability then donate their benefits, according to an August 2020 report sent to the VA by the legal assistance nonprofit Veterans Education Success. In the report, members also accused the church of using their personal information and forging signatures to apply for VA home loans without their knowledge.

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University removes art history professor for showing class two ancient Prophet Muhammad depictions

‘One of the most egregious violations of academic freedom in recent memory’

Hamline University in Minnesota has reportedly declined to renew the contract of an art history professor because they showed two ancient art images depicting the Prophet Muhammad during an optional online class segment.

The College Fix reached out on Monday and Tuesday to campus spokesman Jeff Papas, the university’s public relations specialist Michael Strasburg, and a general communications contact, to ask for the name of the professor, confirmation his contract was not renewed, and the explanation for the non-renewal. No response has been received.

The professor has not been identified in various reports on the incident.

Many — but not all — Muslims object to visual representations of religious figures such as Muhammad, understanding them as form of idolatry, according to Britannica.

“An instructor who showed an Islamic painting during a visual analysis — a basic exercise for art history training — was publicly impugned for hate speech and dismissed thereafter, without access to due process,” Christiane Gruber, a professor of Islamic art at the University of Michigan, wrote in a December 22 essay for New Lines Magazine. 

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Pastor Who Is Friends With NYC Mayor Eric Adams Arrested By Feds

Federal officers arrested New York Bishop Lamor Whitehead and brought charges against him alleging he conned a 56-year-old congregant of her life savings, bullied a businessman for $5,000, and lied to the FBI.

US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams stated: “As we allege today, Lamor Whitehead abused the trust placed in him by a parishioner, bullied a businessman for $5,000, then tried to defraud him of far more than that, and lied to federal agents.”

Bishop Whitehead has been a friend of NYC Mayor Eric Adams and in 2015 while Adam’s was running for Brooklyn Borrugh President he introduced Whitmore on stage asa “good friend and good brother.”

As a repsosne to Whitehead’s arrest Mayor Adams’ spokerpserson released an email from Adam’s stating “While these allegations are troubling, I will withhold further comment until the process reaches its final conclusion.”

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Newly-Passed ‘Respect for Marriage’ Act May Threaten Religious Liberty: Experts

The “Respect for Marriage” Act, after passing through the U.S. House of Representatives, is just a signature away from reaffirming the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling that legalized gay marriage.

President Joe Biden is expected to sign the Act, which would codify the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling that requires states to license gay marriage. If it the legislation is signed into law, it would repeal the “Defense of Marriage” Act, which banned the federal recognition of same-sex marriage.

That’s reason to celebrate for LGBT-identifying people concerned that their ability to marry needs safeguards.

However, some experts say the new federal law creates concerns for others, as it could take encroach on the freedoms of any who refuse to participate in same-sex marriages by making them vulnerable to lawsuits.

Two Republican representatives noted those concerns before the Dec. 8 vote. The bill was sent back to their chamber of Congress after the U.S. Senate changed its wording.

The new version included amendments regarding religious liberty and a section describing the importance of marriage and perspectives on it. The bill also protects interracial marriage.

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Evidence suggests Pope John Paul II knew about abuse of minors decades before becoming pope

A Dutch journalist based in Poland revealed evidence on Friday that Pope John Paul II was involved in covering up the abuse of minors while he was the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Krakow. The journalist, Ekke Overbeek, spent the last two years combing through archives in Poland, where he resides, and found several cases where the prominent Catholic Church figure knew about priests who abused children and helped them evade punishment, including transferring them to other parishes.

“I found concrete cases of priests who abused children in the Archdiocese of Krakow, where the future pope was archbishop. The future pope knew about it and nevertheless transferred those men. That led to new victims,” Overbeek said to Nieuwsuur. The journalist studied publicly available documents from the secret services about the future pope from during his time living and working in Poland. He wrote a book about his findings, Maxima Culpa, which will be published next year in Polish.

“The documents that have been collected directly about Wojtyla have almost all been destroyed, but he is mentioned very often in other documents that have survived. And if you put them all together, they are puzzle pieces that form the picture of how he handled child abuse by priests, and how that has been dealt with.”

Born Karol Józef Wojtyła in Wadowice, Poland in 1920, Pope John Paul II was canonized as a saint after his death in 2005. He began studying to become a priest in a hidden seminary during World War II, and was ordained as a priest in 1946. Within eight years, while working in and around Krakow, he earned his doctorate as a student and teacher of ethics.

He climbed the ranks of the Catholic Church to become an auxiliary bishop in Krakow in 1958. He was appointed archbishop in 1964 and became a cardinal a few years later. By the time he became pope in 1984, the Catholic population of the Krakow Archdiocese had grown from over 1.2 million to over 2.1 million.

It was believed that he only first learned about sexual abuse cases within the Catholic Church after receiving a report from an American priest in 1985. But Overbeek found documents from decades earlier about a priest named Eugeniusz Surgent, who was accused of abusing children.

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Bentley-driving Arizona ‘Mormon prophet’ had TWENTY wives as young as nine including his own daughter, FBI says – and drove them around in a TRAILER with a bucket for a toilet

An Arizona polygamist cult leader had 20 wives aged as young as nine, married his own daughter, and drove his spouses around in a trailer with a bucket for a toilet, it is claimed.  

A new FBI affidavit has revealed shocking allegations against Bentley-driving Samuel Rappylee Bateman, 46, who was arrested in Arizona earlier this year.

Samuel Rappylee Bateman, 46, is accused by witnesses of ‘marrying’ up to 20 women and girls as young as nine, including his own daughter, according to the affidavit filed on Friday, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.  

He has been in federal custody on obstruction charges since his September arrest, which unfolded after Bateman was pulled over by cops while transporting underage girls inside a squalid trailer furnished with a couch and a bucket for a toilet.  

Bateman leads a splinter group of the radical Mormon offshoot Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS — but Bateman is apparently so extreme that he has been denounced even by former FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, a convicted child rapist. 

The FBI affidavit, filed in the Eastern District of Washington, outlines sickening allegations of incest, group sex acts involving adults and underage children, and child sex trafficking. 

FBI Agent Dawn A. Martin, citing witness statements, writes in the filing that Bateman ‘began to proclaim he was a prophet’ and declared his intention to marry his own teenage daughter in 2019.

The affidavit states that Bateman has since gathered ‘approximately 50 followers and more than 20 wives, many of whom are minors, mostly under the age of 15.’ 

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Senate Moves Closer to Passing ‘Respect for Marriage Act’ That Critics Say Threatens Religious Freedom

Senate Democrats—aided by 12 Republicans—took a giant step on Nov. 28 toward the final passage of the “Respect for Marriage Act” that many civil liberties experts say will seriously damage Americans’ freedom of religious practice and expression.

The 61 to 35 vote came on a cloture motion to limit debate on the Senate floor to 30 hours and have the vote on final passage. The same dozen GOP senators had voted on Nov. 16 with all 50 Democrats on a preliminary motion to move the proposal forward. The vote was set up by the pre-Thanksgiving approval of the preliminary motion.

The dozen Republican senators were Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Sen. Todd Young of Indiana.

The proposal was approved by the House in July.

Senior Senate Republican aides who asked not to be named said a vote on final passage is likely Thursday. Votes may also be allowed tomorrow on amendments proposed by Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, James Lankford of Oklahoma, and Marco Rubio of Florida. Their amendments are intended to provide stronger protections for freedom of thought and religion.

Opponents had hoped prior to the Nov. 28 decision to persuade at least three of the dozen GOP senators to reverse themselves and instead oppose moving the proposal forward. Had three done so, the cloture motion would have fallen short of the required 60 votes and the proposal would at least temporarily have been stopped.

Supporters of the proposal like Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), the measure’s original sponsor in the Senate, argued that an amendment incorporated in the text before Thanksgiving and designed to protect pastors, priests, and rabbis from being forced to perform same-sex or other non-traditional marriage ceremonies were sufficient to protect religious freedom.

Baldwin said the amended proposal is needed to “give the millions of Americans in same-sex and interracial marriages the certainty that they will continue to enjoy the freedoms, rights, and responsibilities afforded to all other marriages.”

The Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. The Supreme Court’s 1967 Loving v. Virginia legalized interracial marriage in America.

But Baldwin and other backers of the proposal claim that the High Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision earlier this year threatens those decisions with coming reversals. In a floor speech prior to Nov. 28’s vote, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) called that claim a “scare tactic.”

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Cannabis found in ancient Israeli temple called ‘revolutionary’ discovery

Holy smokes!

Archaeologists have discovered cannabis residue on artifacts in a temple in southern Israel, marking the first known use of hallucinogenic drugs in the Jewish religion, reports the Associated Press.

The study, which was published Friday in the Tel Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, notes that the “revolutionary” findings from an eighth-century BC shrine at Tel Arad suggest “the use of mind-altering substances as part of cultic rituals in Judah.”

“Here, the official state religion of the kingdom of Judah was using this substance,” study author Eran Arie said of the psychotropic samples, which were found on two limestone altars. The synagogue was first unearthed in the 1960s at the Tel Arad excavation site near Jerusalem, however, archaeologists hadn’t identified the ancient marijuana until now.

Chemical analysis also revealed that the hashish was likely burned atop dried animal droppings.

However, it’s unlikely that the ancient Hebrews were smoking pot to get stoned. Yossi Garfinkel, an archaeology professor from Hebrew University, postulated that they took various mind-altering substances, including opium and wine “to get into ecstasy and connect with God.”

The marijuana milestone marks the “first time we see psychoactive substances in Judahite religion,” according to Arie, who hopes the discovery will shed more light on how ancient Israelites conducted worship.

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