3.4. Mahishasaka or Sarvāstivādis

[wisdomlib.org:] [Mahishasaka had the doctrines] similar to those of the Mahasanghika. [Mahishasaka] denied reality to past and future, but maintained the reality of the present. Similarly, the school rejected the doctrine of the void and the non ego, the production of taint by the Five consciousness, the theory of nine kinds of non activity, and so on. They held that enlightenment came suddenly rathern than gradually.

Mahasamghika split from the Sthaviravāda (Theravada or Dhamma-Vinaya) and produced many schools.

According to the Theravādin Dīpavaṃsa, the Sarvāstivādins emerged from the older Mahīśāsaka school, but the Śāriputraparipṛcchā and the Samayabhedoparacanacakra state that the Mahīśāsaka emerged from the Sarvāstivāda. [Sarvastivada (wiki)]

Some Vajjian monks, who were possibly the followers of Devadatta, established the Mahasamghika after the schism after rejecting ten Vinaya rules. Like a few other monks, a Vajjian monk complained about the Vinaya rules. The story is recorded in Vajjiputta Sutta, which was utilised to support an argument that the Dhamma-Vinaya tradition added new rules. Indeed, the Buddha, the founder of the Dhamma-Vinaya Sasana, added new rules as required. However, before His passing He let the monks remove the minor rules, but the monks kept all the 227 rules. Only some Vajjian monks once again attempted to remove ten rules and split the Sangha after their attempt failed. These rebel monks founded many schools that united into Mahayana. The Sarvāstivādis wrote many famous Mahayanist scriptures.

Gandhāran Mahīśāsakas are associated with the Pure Land teachings of Amitābha Buddha. [Seated Buddha Amitabha statue.jpg (wiki)]

• Mādhyamika Also known as: Śūnyavāda, Shunyavada, Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Sarvastivada Also known as: Sarvastivadin, Vaibhashika, Encyclopaedia Britannica

Mahāsaṅghikās revised the Dhamma and Vinaya in their own way. The revised collections were known as Ācariyavāda as distinguished from the Theravāda of the First Buddhist Council. Dīpavaṃsa says, that the Mahāsaṅghikās did not stop after changing the Vinaya rules. They went further by laying down for themselves new doctrines contrary to the established ones. They recited for their purposes the sūtras and Vinaya, they made alterations in the texts and their arrangements and interpretations.
There are four kinds of teachings, that can be accepted as the Buddha's words – sutta, suttānuloma, ācariyavāda, attanomati. In Parinibbāna Sutta there are other four kinds of teaching – Buddhāpadesa, Saṅghāpadesa, Sambahulattherāpadesa, Ekattherāpadesa. They are not contradicting each other.
They also replaced portions of the text by others according to their liking and even rejected certain parts of the canon though they have been accepted according to the tradition of Mahā Kassapa's council. They refused Parivāra and Abhidhamma Pakaraṇa, Paṭisambhidā, Niddesa and Jātaka.
Mahāsaṅghikās divided their canon into five parts: 1. Sūtra, 2. Vinaya, 3. Abhidhamma, 4. Miscellaneous, 5. Dhāranīs. [ Notes from BPU Sri Lanka - Third Year ]

According to Sibani Barman in Dipavamsa (study): Chapter 2d - The Third Buddhist Council,

the Vibhajjavādins claim that their theories and Canon are same as the original Sthaviras (the elders).

• But that statement is untruthful. Kaccānagotta Sutta is a living proof. This is explained in 3.3.

Sarvāstivādis Doctrines

[David Bastow. The first argument for Sarvastivada. Asian Philosophy Vol. 5 No. 2 Oct.1995 Pp.109-125 Copyright by Asian Philosophy]

[Bastow:] The argument is two-fold: that past states of mind can be directly perceived; and that the temporal and causal context of these states of mind, including their karmic future and the possibility of an alternative saving future, can also be directly perceived.

In demonstrating their belief, the Sarvāstivādis attacked, the Venerable Maugdalyayana in the Maugdalyayana-skandhaka, the first chapter of the Vijnanakaya (200 BCE?):

[Bastow:] The sramana Maugdalyayana says: The past and the future do not exist; the present and the unconditioned (asainskrta) exist.

• Atacked: Singled out a thera, ignored the Buddha, and attacked the Dhamma;
• The Venerable Maugdalyayana represents the Sakyamuni Buddha.
• The past is memory, not the present dhamma. The past as memory is perceived, not lived nor imagined. The past as perceived is not lived, but it was lived, so it can be perceived.
• The future is yet to be lived, so it cannot be perceived, but it can be planned, expected and imagined.

[Bastow:] Section 1: [The Sarvāstivādis argued based on] probably Anguttara Nikaya III section 69 (i.e. A i 201-3). "There are three akusala-mulani (roots of ill, roots leading to bad consequences). These are lobha, greed; dvesa, anger; and moha, confusion." From this agreed premise the argument proceeds, first taking the case of lobha. There is no doubt then that there has been, is, will be a seeing that lobha is akusala (otherwise translated: a seeing of akusala--presumably meaning akusala-dharmas--in or through lobha). The lobha that is thus seen--is it past, present or future? If it is past or future, then it must be admitted that past or future exist. So could it be present?

• Lobha (greed) which existed in the past does not exist now, nor will exist in the future. When the object that caused that state of mind dimished, that greed also dimished. For example, one ate a certain food with greed. After eating it, greed was replaced by another state of mind, sleepiness, which was about sleeping and delusion. Sleepiness is different from craving for food. One does not get sleepy for food.
• If the same greed were to exist until now, one must be greedy the same way one was greedy for that food. Then one must not have different states of mind, anger and delusion.
• Greed cannot liberate anyone from anger and delusion.
• If that greed and all other greed must exist right now, greed must be accumulating and becoming too much to handle.
• And there were times of anger and delusion.
• Can anyone proove they are suffering from all the greed, anger and delusion which they had in the past?

[Bastow:] To allow this would involve admitting that there are in one pudgala two simultaneous cittas, states of consciousness; but this cannot be admitted. However, there must be seeing of either past lobha, or future lobha, or present lobha; otherwise it could not be that someone sees that lobha, akusalamula, is akusala. And in that case it would not happen that someone becomes repelled by lobha, detached, freed from lobha, obtains nirvana (or has obtained or will obtain nirvana).

• Hetu paccaya (root condition)
• Root (anusaya) exists but not as a plant (lobha).

[Anusaya Sutta:] its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising; [Thanissaro Bhikkhu] [Anusaya] are identified or associated with kleśa, paryavasthāna, and āsrava, and they are the ‘root’ of bhava [Dr. Ari Ubeysekara:] The seventh and the last of the latent tendencies is [obsession with ignorance (avijjanusaya)] which can be considered as the root cause of all unwholesome actions.

• Root (obsession) of greed is not greed.
• Nibbana is realised by exhausting the past kamma committed based on greed, anger and delusion.
• Anusaya Sutta: Obsessions (1): the seven obsessions

[Bastow:] The same argument is then applied to other things that can be seen with respect to lobha: it can be seen that lobha is a fetter, a bondage, an anusaya; and further that lobha is to be rejected, to be left behind, to be abandoned, to be fully known (prajna).

• Sarvāstivādis knew about anusaya, but they might not understand it as explained by the Sakyamuni Buddha.
• Lobha comes into being when consciousness comes to contact with a sight, sound, smell, taste, touch or thought of an object/subject that is alluring.
• Dosa comes into being when consciousness comes to contact with a sight, sound, smell, taste, touch or thought of an object/subject that is agitating/annoying.
• Moha comes into being when consciousness comes to contact with a sight, sound, smell, taste, touch or thought of an object/subject that is difficult, mysterious, deluding...
• Lobha, dosa, and moha cannot exist at the same moment of consciousness, nor unconscious-ness.
• Lobha, dosa, and moha are cetasika.
• Citta and cetasika need each other's support to stand like the two sheaves of reeds.
• Lobha, dosa, and moha cannot be abandoned, but they must be eradicated by digging out the roots.

Devadaha Sutta (2)

[SN 22:2 Venerable Sāriputta explained to a large number of monks:] ‘When one is not free from passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, & craving for [rūpa], then from any change & alteration in that [rūpa], there arises sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair. When one is not free from passion… for feeling… for perception… for fabrications… & despair. When one is not free from passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, & craving for consciousness... & despair. Seeing this danger, our teacher teaches the subduing of passion & desire for [rūpa]… for feeling… for perception… for fabrications. Seeing this danger our teacher teaches the subduing of passion & desire for consciousness.’

A History of Indian Philosophy Volume 1

by Surendranath Dasgupta 1922 212,082 words ISBN-13: 9788120804081
Quoting Vasumitra (100 A.D.), Surendranath Dasgupta presents three major Mahayanist groups as doctrinally not very different, and the Hindu authors ignored their (minor) differences.

1. Mahāsaṅghikas: the body was filled with mind {citta) which was represented as sitting,
2. Prajñaptivādins: no agent in man, no untimely death, for it was caused by the previous deeds of man,
3. Sarvāstivādins believed that everything existed.

We can observe how all these doctrines are presented in the earliest Mahayanist sutras, particularly the Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra, the Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtra, the Lankavatara Sutra, Saddharma Pundarika Sutra (the Lotus Sutra).

the Prajñaptivādins had inaugurated the Śūnyavāda by drawing up a list of ten emptinesses. In the Mahāvibhāṣā [...] we read [...] there are many śūnyatās [...] Were the Prajñaptivādins the inventors of these ten śūnyatās or were they borrowed from the Mahāyānists? [II. Emptiness in the Hinayānist sects]

Gelongma Karma Migme Chödrön asks that question. The Hindu writers seem to have the answer:

[Dasgupta] When the Hindu writers refer to the Buddhist doctrine in general terms such as “the Buddhists say” without calling them the Vijñānavādins or the Yogācāras and the Śūnyavādins, they often refer to the Sarvāstivādins by which they mean both the Sautrāntikas and the Vaibhāṣikas, ignoring the difference that exists between these two schools.

Nāgārjuna did not consider the Prajñaptivādins as Mahayanists. Mahayana did not exist when the Mahāsaṅghikas was formed after the second schism (Devadatta's schism was the first), so they are considered as Sthaviravādis, who produced Prajñaptivādins and Sarvāstivādins. By AD 5th-6th, Bodhidharma arrived to China, and according to him, Mahayana was well-established as the Yogacara school, which adopted the Lankavatara Sutra.

Bodhidharma was believed to have introduced the Lankavatara Sutra to Chinese Buddhism. This sutra was a development of the Yogacara (“Mind-only”) school of Buddhism established by the great masters Asanga and Vasubandhu, and Bodhidharma is described as a “master of the Lankavatara Sutra”. [ Bodhidharma – the founder of Gongfu (Tsem Rinpoche and Pastor Adeline)]

The authors of the Lankavatara were the Sarvāstivādins.

[Bodhidharma:] the only reason I’ve come to China is to transmit the instantaneous teaching of the Mahayana This mind is the Buddha. (Bloodstream Sermon)
[Bodhidharma:] "This nature is the mind. And the mind is the buddha."
[Lanka:] this triple world is nothing but a complex manifestation of one’s mental activities."

Bodhidharma, known as an expert in the ten-stage sutra, was a zen master, from the Yogacara school. He did not know vipassana, as he condemned arhats. He was clearly a follower of Mahadeva, who authored the five points downgrading the arhats.

[Bodhidharma:] Among Shakyamuni’s ten greatest disciples, Ananda was foremost in learning. But he didn’t know the Buddha. All he did was study and memorize. Arhats don’t know the Buddha...

Bodhidharma did not know the meaning of arhat. Nāgārjuna defines arhat in Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra as follow:
[quote]
1. Ara means enemy (ari) and hat means to kill (han). The expression therefore means “killer of enemies”.^\1]) Some stanzas say:

The Buddha has patience (kṣānti) as his armor (varman), Energy (vīrya) as his helmet (śīrṣaka),
Discipline (śīla) as his great steed (mahāśva),
Dhyāna as his bow (dhanus),
Wisdom (prajñā) as his arrows (śara).
Outwardly, he destroys the army of [Māra] (https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/mara#mahayana) (*mārasena*).
Inwardly, he destroys the passions (kleśa), his enemies.
He is called Arhat.

1. Furthermore, A marks negation and rahat means ‘to be born’. The expression means, therefore, “unborn”. The seeds (bīja) of the mind of the Buddha (buddhacitta) ‘do not arise’ in the field of rebirths (punarbhavakṣetra), for ignorance (avidyā) in him has been dissolved.

[end quote] Nevertheless, the Flower Sermon, which was composed in 1036 states that Mahayana comes from Kashyapa, whom Bodhidharma mentions in the Bloodstream Sermon. Based on Bodhidharma's attitude to the arhats, that Kashyapa could not be the Venerable Mahakassapa, the father of the Sangha who established the Theravada. However, that Kashapa appears in the Lankavatara Sutra:

Kashyapa (fl. 400 B.C.) . Also known as Uruvilva Kashyapa or Mahakashyapa, he was the eldest of the three Kashyapa brothers and among the Buddha’s earliest disciples. He was also India’s First Patriarch of Zen. [Lankavatara Sutra: Glossary. Page 458]

The Mahayanists expect they could become Buddhas by following these individuals.

The Flower Sermon (1036 AD) : the Buddha gathered his disciples together for a talk on Dharma. Instead of speaking, however, the Buddha simply held up a lotus flower in front of him without saying a word. “I possess the true Dharma eye, the marvelous mind of Nirvāṇa, the true form of the formless, the subtle Dharma gate that does not rest on words or letters but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures. This I entrust to Mahakasyapa.”

Conspiracy theories involving “elite” pedophile rings have recently been dominating social media in a disorienting frenzy. They have been around for some time but in this century rose back to popularity during the 2016 Election cycle. This crop, at least, took root with what became known as “Pizzagate.”
Promoters of that conspiracy theory in 2016 used social media platforms to make unfounded but viral allegations that Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats were running a pedophile ring out of the basement of a pizzeria even though that restaurant had no basement, or any ties to known politicians other than the typical flesh pressing (Phrasing I know) moments fit for a picture hung on the wall.
Since then, the dark theme of Pizzagate has found new life with permutations forming part of the #Qanon conspiracy theory, incorporated under the umbrella term “pedogate.” The gist of the #pedogate conspiracy theory is that global elites (politicians, celebrities, and wealthy businesspersons) are covertly involved in a far-reaching ring that uses young children for sexual purposes.
“What most of these conspiracy theories involve in one way or another is laying accusations of pedophilia or involvement in pedophile rings at the feet of people that they despise or hate, and during the 16’ election cycle, Democrats were a wide target for an opposing political movement that had hijacked the rival Republican party. Pizzagate originated with the “alt right” and “alt lite,” far right extremists who range from outright white supremacists to those who publicly shun racists but otherwise fall in step with their belief systems.
Pizzagate jumped from the fringes to the mainstream because as it denigrated Hillary Clinton, it sucked in supporters of then-candidate Donald Trump.
After the election all mention of pedogate seemed to be put on a simmer while other National outrages boiled over (#Covid #RussiaGate #BLM) and just like clockwork (heading into our next election cycle has been turned back up.
The pedogate conspiracy and all associated stories employ a centuries-old tactic: playing on deep-seated human anxieties by conjuring images of imperiled children, the purest and defenseless victim of any manner of injustice.
An example in the modern era of weaponized conspiracy was the satanic panic of the 1980s, in which a wave of hysteria over alleged child molestation at daycare centers swept the nation. But while that phenomenon was a moral panic attributable, at least in part, to social anxiety over white middle class women entering the work force en masse for the first time and entrusting their children to others, the current conspiracy theories about pedophile rings equate to similar propaganda. They carry a danger for stirring up violence.
If you want to elicit violent action the way to do it is through hate and fear. Once you target and label a population as pedophiles, you can do anything you like to that population with full excuse being given to the myth you’ve wrapped around it.
That’s not to say fears of child abuse or sex trafficking are unfounded. There are many as pedophilia has ancient roots and in many cases was encourage by many world cultures and religions a lot later into Civilization than we’d like to admit. The International Labor Organization reports that 25 percent of the world’s 40.3 million victims of human trafficking are children.
The most vulnerable, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, are migrants, runaways, the homeless, and youngsters who have been victims of violence. Despite their obsession over the topic, conspiracy followers aren’t worked up about those children who are in true harm’s way.
In the world of propaganda, it’s never about real children. Instead, it’s about what children represent. The children imperiled by conspiracy theories, in other words, are only metaphors.
Children carry a vast amount of weight in any society, but especially modern ones when they’re expected to survive past the age of five. It wasn’t as intense before the 18th century when child mortality rates were really high. They represent the future, and all that is beautiful and decent and honest in a society, because they are innocent.
For most people also, the meaning of their existence is rooted in their children. Children are eschatological, they represent death for us, and what is coming behind us after we are gone. They also represent the threat of loss, if they disappear, if they die, that is the death of society. That’s why they became so crucial and central to Cold War propaganda. The real terror of the nuclear holocaust would be the death of the children, because that’s the death of everyone.
A recent example of this is in a recent police investigation into conspiracy claims of PizzaGate style accusation of Portland’s Voodoo Doughnuts. Detectives attempted to contact the person accusing Voodoo Doughnuts on social media of running a pedophile ring. The accuser did not cooperate with investigators and it’s been documented in other coverage online that they had become agitated and accused the Police with complicity when tracked down in person, even though they were attempting to investigate.
The pendulum of conspiracy theories about systematic child abuse has swung back and forth for centuries. Examples such as blood libel, when Jewish communities were attacked over false allegations of murdering and consuming Christian children in the Middle Ages.
In Europe, During the Thirty Years War, entire villages were put to the sword because it was believed they were abusing children of the other religions.
One characteristic that helps Pizzagate-style conspiracy theories gain popularity is that they function like a puzzle game and give its audience a large level of involvement through social media.
A lot of conspiracy theories are oracular, where the information comes from one source an oracle. Then there are others where there are a few people who promote the notions, almost like gurus or a conspiracy priesthood.
With Pizzagate, it’s more of what one would call a participatory conspiracy theory. Participatory conspiracy theories lay out a scenario or situation and then they ask their audience, ‘what more can you find out about this, what more can you add?’ It turns the audience into willing participants, some knowing they are creating a destructive madlib and other (potential real victims) caking on mystical distraction to issues that have been unreported or scars that have not bee properly treated.
The thing about participatory conspiracy theories is it can really create a devoted following because it gives people something to do, it makes them feel they can solve the whole thing or uncover new aspects to it. Once you get that energy going it’s almost self-sustaining. Followers of the Qanon conspiracy theory, call themselves “bakers” because their protagonist “Q” pops up on Internet message boards and leaves “crumbs” (i.e., clues), and they are tasked with picking up the crumbs in order to solve the puzzle. (“Q” is supposed to reference the character’s government security clearance level).
*#Q followers believe an even more incoherent version of Pizzagate. This is largely a right-wing fantasy that originated in a series of incoherent posts on #4chan in 2017 by someone calling themselves #QAnon. Following on the heels of similar idiocy such as Pizzagate, it advances a fantastic web of deceit that wraps up Trumpism, deep state fearmongering, evil, satanic pedophilia rings controlled by the Democratic Party, investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election, the Las Vegas shooting, and New World Order paranoia into a package easily and wholeheartedly promoted by internet cesspools and far-right personalities such as Alex Jones.
The premise is that President Trump is secretly working to take down a global ring of elite, cannibalistic, satanic pedophiles. And the investigation into Russian meddling into the 2016 election, led by former FBI director Robert Mueller, is actually an investigation into the so-called “deep state”, where a cabal of evil, globalists, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are responsible for everything from a global pedophile ring to the mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017.
According to the enlightened, when Trump awkwardly took a drink from a bottle of Fiji water at a press conference in November 2017, it wasn’t because he was thirsty; it was actually a secret signal to those in the know that the annihilation of deep state pedophiles had begun (or was about to begin). Because as everyone knows, Fiji is a hot spot for child trafficking.* ( I could go on and on with this poorly thought-out shit, I will spare you )
The role the Internet and social media play in helping to spread such insanity can’t be underestimated. Just a few decades earlier, conspiracy theorists would identify each other using letters to the editor printed in newspapers and magazines. It was a lot harder to identify your fellow conspiracy theorists. You would have to physically meet to swap your stories or send letters or call. They would set up these groups that would communicate by newsletter. They would meet in a physical space, like someone’s living room.
I personally witnessed people from my childhood, dutifully photocopying newsletters they had received in the mail to give to others (Primarily at my #JW congregation, how ironic). Now obviously it can go much more quickly, because you can identity people immediately. You can quickly share ideas and the data you’ve collected.
The Internet allows such people to exist in bubbles where they rarely have their beliefs challenged. The extraordinarily polarized society we’re in right now has made people less willing to seek out other view points. Because of the internet you have less chance of doing this.
There’s very little incentive to look outside one’s own bubble once they have become invested in a conspiracy theory. Once you start to act out on those behaviors you are forced to double down by repeating the act to prove it was a just act. Eventually you get caught up in a movement that totally defines your conscious and you can’t get out of it. The second you step out of that world view your actions go back to being reprehensible.
Now the question becomes, “What’s the harm? If it sheds light on child abuse, then isn’t it still productive?” The answer in this case is a resounding NO. In my opinion and PAINFUL experience, the root cause and sustaining factors of institutionalized child sex abuse are all things that would counter your typical Conspiracy Nut’s world view, thus causing a complete blackout to the problems.
The entity taking part in the harming of children on a local and tangible level aren’t some suit and tie wearing global elitist. It’s a guidance counselor, youth pastor, unvetted young substitute teacher, aunt/uncle/cousin/neighbor.
It’s anyone who has been given routine private access to a child’s mind and body because of the social conventions that have been protected for generations by our relatives whether they themselves are guilty of abuse or not.
In all the Qanon madness I also kept very close tabs on the pending prosecution of the Boy scouts of America and never saw any widely shared memes about their involvement in the abuse syndicate.
Why is this? How is this so? Aren’t these people watching the news, seeing the court records and hearing the individual cases being brought against Scout Leaders (SOME OF WHO RAN THEIR OWN NETWORKS!!)?
When I would find mention of accusation it was met with the ever scarce “skepticism” because if the media is covering it, it must be a plot to destroy the organization. There are now non-for profit organizations setting up victim funds and protections for people to come out with their stories and somehow THIS is the fake ruse.
Some that know me know that I was a Jehovah’s Witness as a youth/teen/young adult. That chapter of my life could fill many chapters and the research on the organization, the real true black and white history of the religion would honestly surprise you. I saw what I now know was abuse, I personally experienced abuse in many forms. The perpetrators involved are either still Witnesses or are dead or have moved “away from the organization”.
One thing that was left intact in each situation was the secret that they prey on children. The parents, these organizations and the collective promise to keep up appearances are directly to blame for the suffering untold thousands, millions of children and broken adults.
All for what? Pride and Vanity and a commitment to all involved to protect them from the “mean old world” despite allowing predators to eat their children from within.
Being a #JW was a very interesting experience. It provides a very efficient form of insulation from outside society and allows people involved to view the chaos from afar. There is this persistent (albeit false) sense of shared peace that members have. It’s as though for three days a week you go to this meeting where no matter what, everyone has a smile and feels about things EXACTLY how you do. There is no cursing, there are no politics, there surely isn’t any destructive influences that would tarnish your chances of salvation. For a parent this is a refuge when raising a child in a world that is dangerously unpredictable.
A Child that you are unable (or unwilling) to teach coping skills to get along by societal standards, A child you want to protect by hiding. This is problem #1.
As an adult the congregation presents an avenue for which you can act and behave in a way that allows you to reconcile your past, a way to have less of those nights awake because you think about past wrongs you’ve committed against people. It’s the proverbial band-aid for a guilty, bruised, destroyed conscious of any size. Coming into the organization takes nothing more than the desire to change, publicly declaring your willingness to hand over your life to God (The organization). Bam, You’re in! No credit check, no background check. This is problem #2.
A JW is taught that “every facet is an asset” (Ministerial Servants know what I’m talking about). What this means is that every facet of your life is an asset to the organization to spread its word. If the world see’s their product’s application into your life and thereby how much better it is than a normal person’s, then they’ve made an “Effective Witness” to the world. This causes Witnesses of any age to allow almost every facet of their life to be a tool by the organization. For a parent this includes their children. This is problem #3.
When you get a culture that insulates itself from the real world, that allows you to enter without any coherent vetting, give access to children whose parents feel obligated to present as a “witness” to the lifestyle. You get a twisted corridor in which victims can get lost for a lifetime and predators can hide in plain sight.
For any proponents of the “Save-The-Children” movement to not take a step back and really analyze their local community and lifestyle through these lenses only illustrates that child abuse is being weaponized politically at the expense of others whom you aren’t willing to save because it would look bad for ‘your side’. If you truly care, you wouldn’t be sharing email forwards about what evil unverified unmentionable thing you read some celebrity or politician did. Instead, you’d be drawing back on your experiences as a child.
Even if nothing happened directly to you, I’m sure you know some one that had an experience that forever harmed their life. Who did it? Was there a pattern or social condition that allowed for this as was laid out in the JW example?
How could it have been avoided? Would you have stopped it if you saw the signs? Are you willing to stop it in the future, knowing what you know now?
If you can answer any of those questions with a yes, then you have all you need to WRITE your own material to reach real victims and their families. Does your action cause problems for your ‘side’? It shouldn’t matter and you know that. If it does make a difference to you then you are no better than the shadowy pedophilic cabal that you are so obsessed with.

If you have ever been approached by someone complimenting you or trying to act friendly with you, there's a solid chance they're from CCF. As someone who used to be in the organization, they will lovebomb and act like your friend, but this is only to build a rapport with the leader and you. They will tell you to give up your career and education to "follow the Lord" but they really are trying to groom you to be an intern which is where you basically have to beg your friends and family for a lot of money. These people are some of the slimiest, most fakest people I have ever met in my life and will only pretend to be your friend so that you can get sucked into their fake ass organization, which in reality is more like a cult. For reference, the organization CCF is affiliated with has been accused of numerous illegal activities:
https://abc13.com/daniel-savala-texas-sex-offender-spiritual-leader-chi-alpha-campus-ministries-sam-houston-state-university/14528137/
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2024/january/chi-alpha-abuse-lawsuit-assemblies-of-god-texas-am-savala.html
https://www.christianpost.com/news/former-chi-alpha-pastor-gets-no-jail-time-for-sex-abuse.html
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/religion/2024/03/19/481075/assemblies-of-god-campus-ministry-leaders-failed-to-protect-houston-area-college-student-from-ongoing-sexual-abuse-lawsuit-asserts/
https://www.reddit.com/UTSA/comments/uljm5j/why_i_left_the_real_truth_about_chi_alpha/
https://www.lawrentian.com/archives/1015065
https://www.christianpost.com/news/chi-alpha-national-director-resigns-in-aftermath-of-abuse-scandal.html
https://www.hercampus.com/school/utsa/open-letter-chi-alpha-fellow-roadrunner-and-christian/

If you are thinking about working at or if you are thinking about donating to Faith Comes By Hearing/Hosanna [https://www.faithcomesbyhearing.com](https://www.faithcomesbyhearing.com/) you should consider the following. Having worked at Faith Comes By Hearing myself for decades, you should be aware of their culture and ideology. (Arranged from most important to least.)
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\*Treatment of the Bible:
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Grammatical, historical and cultural context as well as literary genre are all ignored by top management. So, Scripture is often misquoted and misused:
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Ignoring basic, common sense guidelines, rules for interpreting the Bible results in misinterpreting, misunderstanding, and misapplying the Bible. Management ignores the fact that observation (what the text says) must always come before interpretation (what the text means); and interpretation always comes before application (how the text applies to me). They do not consider the Bible text objectively first: They treat the text subjectively or relatively or assume what the passage text means. And they ignore the fact that a text cannot mean today what it never could have meant to the original authors and original readers. Exegesis is often contrasted with “eisegesis”; the Greek preposition εἰς means “into,” and hence eisegesis means reading your own meaning into the text. Bible study is not reading your personal theology into some biblical passage. Bible study is letting the text talk to us; we are the listeners, not the talkers. Many Christians just want to know what the Bible “means to me.” If you stop to think about it, this just is not possible. We must do the hard work of learning the author’s original meaning first, and without that we can’t ever know “what it means to me.” A text cannot mean what it never meant.
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\*Feelings and experiences rule:
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There is a focus by top management on personal experiences and feelings instead of a studied period of reflection: Emotional, simple, popular teaching instead of intellectually careful and doctrinally precise teaching. Bible studies go straight to the question, “What does this passage mean to me?” while bypassing the prior question, “What does the passage say and why do I think my interpretation is correct?” Management promotes and allows employees to get away with applying an understanding of a passage that is based on vague feelings or first impressions and not on the hard work of reading the context, verifying with commentaries and using study tools such as concordances, Bible dictionaries, and the like because a careful exercise of reason is not important in understanding what the Bible actually says for management. Besides, it takes work! For management, Christianity is identified with subjective feelings, sincere motives, personal piety, and blind faith. Management tests the truth not by a careful application of our God-given faculties of thought, or even by biblical mandates (for example, 2 Corinthians 10:5), but rather by private subjective experiences. For the most part, theoretical reason is just not part of the culture at FCBH. In fact, top management will often spiritualizing normal, everyday things like advice, facts, common knowledge:
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Example during a meeting, the CEO said he saw a full moon, then clouds formed & covered the moon, then clouds dissipated. He then said he felt God say: "I can turn nothing into something; something into nothing; turn this ministry into something & if it goes thick & blocks Jesus; it has to diminish.”
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So, personal, subjective experiences that top management shares equals truth that employees must agree with or at least accept as true.
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Also, time is money, but management uses their mandatory meetings to discuss controversial or complex topics (e.g., fasting, communion, tithing, personal stewardship of money, helping the homeless, how to create more interaction with remote workers, how to retain employees, how to hire more Gen Z employees, past trauma), most of which are unrelated to the actual work. Then they ask employees (most of which have no authority to get things changed/done) what their opinion is about the controversial or complex topic, instead of consulting with professionals or experts.
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So, top management will read a bible verse (not a paragraph, not a chapter, a verse; usually out of context) using a version of the Bible that is almost a paraphrase. Then share something personal that happened to them, something they did or saw or experienced or a personal conviction that is not related to the verse. Then explain how they felt about it, how they interpreted it. Then they will ask employees (especially internationals) to share similar experiences. And, then if no one shares or comments or speaks, management makes employees feel guilty: Along the lines of “So, God is not working in your life?”
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Example: “I felt God give me this verse about gossip. Let me share with you some personal stories about gossip…. This is how I see it. Now, in the last 5 min of our time, I want people to share. I especially want input from internationals. Does anyone have anything to say about this? No, one? Is God not speaking to you? How can God not be moving and speaking? This is unreal….”
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Top management will often use a reader response or subjective biblical interpretation: “This is what I think this verse means. What do you think this verse means? What stood out to you? What did you learn? What is God asking you to apply?” This is a very self-centered way to interpret Scripture. The focus is all about you. What you think. What you feel. But, “The Bible is not about you.” - Timothy Keller. And this leads to people looking at the same verse and coming up with completely different interpretations. Everybody seems to have an opinion on what the Bible says/teaches.
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So, instead of discovering what the original author said to the original readers. They will take Biblical concepts (e.g., called to ministry; felt led by the Spirit; God spoke to me; felt peace) and then add new meanings to them which the original author did not intend. This is dangerous since it leaves employees with doubt, disillusionment, disappointment, discouragement, and false hope and can leave them with unmet, unrealistic, and false expectations. Top management will also take subjective, unclear biblical principles or non-essentials, or personal convictions and make them scriptural authority and then judge other Christians who do not agree. They will treat the Proverbs as promises. They will also not make an effort to distinguish between Biblical principles and practices which are relative, time bound, culturally subjective, Biblically illustrated (not commanded). They will often make hasty generalizations. They will beg the question. They will commit special pleading, dictionary simpliciter, reductive, faulty analogy and many other fallacies. They will also allegorize promises in Scripture and spiritualize all principles. They assume that all historical narratives have individual identifiable moral application. God’s word should be taught clearly, not in a distorted manner. Top management will proof text and use religious words to promote their agenda.
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And top management will encourage others to have this view/philosophy of Bible interpretation. Many incorrectly interpret the Bible and do not even realize it.
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I pray to God that this bad method of interpretation is not being taught to internationals, to people who have never had bibles, who do not have biblical discernment, who don't know any better.
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\*Inductive Bible study and internationals:
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Hermeneutics has been defined as the science and art of biblical interpretation. Hermeneutics helps us understand the Bible. It is a science because there are specific rules the interpreter must follow. It is an art because it takes years of practice to develop the ability to employ those rules properly. There is a difference between a novice and a seasoned interpreter. Hermeneutics has two basic steps, finding what the text meant to its original audience, and then seeing how it applies to our current situation. Unfortunately, many people (Americans included), impose their own personal experiences, theology, and modern culture on to the Biblical text.
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Fortunately, God has allowed us (especially Americans) to have Bible dictionaries, commentaries, handbooks, atlases, etc., to help us with correct hermeneutics, to understand the essential historical and cultural information - the context of the original author and readers of the Bible. We have tools that shed light on the text and help us to arrive at the correct interpretation. When you read a commentary, it will provide checks and balances against your possible mistakes. They can answer questions that a reading of the text can never provide or ask questions that you may never think of asking. Unfortunately, many international people groups do not have access to these tools (or even access to mature, trained, and experienced Christians and pastors). And even if they do have access to resources, they may not know how to use them properly (i.e., limitations of commentaries).
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Grammatical-Historical Method or Inductive Bible study can easily be done with printed or digital Bibles. But how can a person do this with audio and video Bibles? This is critical especially for international people groups that do not have access to (and may never have) print Bibles.
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False gospels and heresies are popular in illiterate people groups because they are not taught discernment or how to evaluate Scripture and the thoughts of others for themselves. People with ulterior motives misuse Scripture and end up influencing the illiterate.
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If these Bible Films and audio Bibles are considered to be actual Bible Translations – video and audio translations of the Bible and the equivalent to and sometimes a replacement for print scripture – then should we also make it a point to teach people who are watching and listening to our video and audio Bible translations Biblical hermeneutics (historical-grammatical interpretation)? How to study the Bible properly for themselves?
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My experience has been that many non-Christians (and Christians) misquote or misinterpret the Bible because they do not know how to actually read and study it on their own to find out what the text actually meant to the original author and audience and seeing how it applies to their current situation.
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There are many ways to study the Bible, and there are many excellent study aids available to help you with specific books of the Bible. But the most important thing you need to remember is that to find out what the Bible says, you need to read it yourself in a way that will help you discover what it says, what it means, and how you are to apply it to your life. And the best way to do this is through the process called inductive study. Inductive study doesn’t tell you what the Bible means or what you should believe. Instead, it teaches you a method of studying God’s Word that can be applied to any portion of Scripture at any time.
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Inductive Bible study draws you into personal interaction with the Scripture and thus with the God of the Scriptures so that your beliefs are based on a prayerful understanding and legitimate interpretation of Scripture.
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\*Artistic freedom concerns:
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Another concern is with the artistic freedom or personal preference when it comes to audio and video Bible media (when these function as replacements for print Scripture). How much can be taken before you compromise the historical accuracy or the meaning and understanding of the original message? A good translation must be faithful to the historical situation and not change the cultural background. In Bible Translation, the translator’s first job is to study the text carefully to discover the correct meaning (what the original author wanted to communicate). Do international people groups understand that the “artistic freedom” (e.g., how the film is lit, the key shots, angles it shoots from, close-ups, point of view, sets, locations and props, editing, the dialogue and the actors’ performance and emotions, wardrobe choices, soundtrack, visual transitions, reference shots), the visuals and sound, are all NOT inspired?
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Biblical and Orthodox Christianity teaches that All Scripture (not just some) is inspired by God who utilized the human element within man to accomplish this without error.The very WORDS (not just the ideas, even parts of letters, and sometimes the tense of verbs) are a result of the mind of God expressed in human terms and conditions. The Bible IS fully true in all that it teaches or asserts to be true (including historical and scientific matters). Only the original documents (autographs) are completely free from error. Does FCBH make an effort to explain this to people groups? If not, then there will be conflict when the visuals and sounds that are added do not match the Biblical text. There will be confusion, doubt, disillusionment, disappointment, discouragement, false hope when people are confronted with unmet, unrealistic, and false expectations.
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So, using audio and especially video as Bibles should come with some teaching of the basic principles of film criticism, the doctrine of inspiration (difference between artistic freedom and the Word of God), and inductive Bible study or Bible interpretation.
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\*Communicating the truth:
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They employ a presuppositional and fideistic/experiential approach to evangelism: In the many testimonies that are shared, many of the people who receive the audio bibles say they believe in Jesus because FCBH gave them bibles that are in their native language. Makes you wonder what would happen if the audio was from the Quran or book of Mormon. Would they believe in anything as long as it was in their own language? FCBH does not seem to make sure people are actually believing facts. There seems to be no appeals to evidence and reason for the truthfulness of the Christianity. One should become a Christian and believe that Jesus is God because it is true (from reason, historical evidence, archaeological evidence, theistic arguments) and not because the Bible one reads is in a certain language. You should follow Jesus because He is God and proved it; not because He speaks your language.
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\*Hearing from God?
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Many in management practice “hearing from God” and then claim God said something specific and personal to them and to the ministry. This practice uses God's name in vain. And often use God to avoid personal responsibility - “I heard from God; God told me; I felt led; God spoke to me…” They then put what happens on God, so they avoid any personal responsibility if it does not come to pass. They make Christianity out to be personal, private, and a matter of “how I feel about things.” Many Christians actually feel spiritually sub-standard and defeated because for them “the heavens have been silent”. This can be debilitating, and it’s profoundly unfair to employees if their only shortcoming is entertaining a false expectation of what a relationship with God entails. Conversations are often littered with casual references to one’s latest revelations without any sense of the gravity of the assertion, or any sense of responsibility to justify the claim. Even Jesus Himself didn’t presume to speak for God without compelling evidence. But, management takes personal opinions and spiritualize them as if they were God’s word to give divine authority to impulses or thoughts that drift through their minds. To say “God is telling me” gives feelings an authority the Scripture does not justify and virtually ends debate. You can’t argue with the person if God supposedly gave the command. Trusting inner feelings is not biblical. It’s confusing at best, and dangerous at worst.
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And with certain requests from employees, when top management does not want to do something, they will respond by saying things like: “I need to pray about it first. Sorry, I do not feel led. I need to get confirmation first. I need to have peace about it first. I need to hear from God first.” But with other things, with things they want to do, they do not need to pray about it first, do not need to feel led, do not need to get confirmation first, do not need to have a peace about it first, do not need to hear from God first. When management does not want to do something, they pass the responsibility off to God (“We cannot…. because God didn’t tell us to do it. Didn't get confirmation.”); but when they do want to do something, they don't seek God and do what they want (“We have decided and are going to… and we don’t need to ask God for guidance or permission”).

An excerpt from the upcoming thesis on the counter theory to the rise of MAGA.
The Radicalization Of Evangelicalism
With how fanatic MAGA members have become, its vital to take a deeper look into a crucial part of its spiritual reverence as prophesized by evangelicals. "Pro-life, pro-traditional family, pro-moral, and pro-American" has largely been the Republican platform for quite sometime, but it's also an implant by the efforts of one man who sought to control and organize many narrative's into one which he felt best fit his pristine vision.
The question here was "Have Evangelicals always been this way." The answer surprised me. No, they weren't. Then even once widely supported abortions for financial reasons, which was arguably less aggressive than Roe Vs wade, which restricted potential reasons for abortions and the trimesters increased.
The odd fact is that one single man, coming from a family of casual atheists, criminals, bootleggers and drunks, would grow up partying and drinking to then start the strictest and "purest" Evangelical movement that would forever shake their course and culture. He was also the one that organized the goals of "Pro-life, pro-traditional family, pro-moral, and pro-American" with his 'Moral Majority' organization.
The tragedy is how he shoved his 'imperfect' son into a spotlight of having to push extreme conservative values that ultimately lead to his downfall in juxtaposition.
Falwell Jr. even claimed that his downfall was due to his relationship with Trump, and not his own sins.
I want to be clear that this family does not define the Evangelical movement and I pray they find themselves on a more balanced path going forward.
Evangelicalism In The 1900s'

• Evangelicals were not always on the far right, their people, pastors and community even previously recommended abortion bills. “Financial capability” was even an approved reason, by Gods will, to engage with abortion.

Politico Abortion History Right White Evangelical
ASA3 Article by the Christian Medical Society of historical Abortion Stance
The Man Who Radicalized Evangelicalism

• Yet one man, Jerry Falwell, a segregationist, would push for modernization and mobilization of the evangelical far right movement. Apparently, he knew better than every pastor in the history of that religion.
• Near 1980 he launched his “Moral majority” group and “I Love America” rallies. He said he felt he saw a serious lacking in general morality in the country and was trying to save it. The Moral Majority was promoted as being pro-life, pro-traditional family, pro-moral, and pro-American. Which are all hallmarks of the Republican party and MAGA today.

Wiki Moral Majority

• Fallwell pushed for conservative politics so much that it led Billy Graham, a widely respected and well-known evangelical preacher, to criticize him for “sermonizing” about political issues that lacked a moral element.

Centerforpolitics On Farwell Sr History “Poisonous” To Republican GOP

• Graham, unlike Falwell, insisted on racial integration and even invited Martin Luther King to preach with him at a revival in New York City.
• However, Fallwell, a televangelist Christian, would make the odd alliance with Weyrich, a Roman Catholic, to help get “religion back into politics” to fight the imaginary enemy of “secular humanism.” Even though Falwell’s father was an atheist and from a line of criminals and drunks.

Cnn Opinion Weyrich Catholics Protestants

• Beyond intense homophobic, racist and misogynistic comments, Falwell preached, “The idea religion and politics don’t mix was invented by the Devil to prevent Christians from running their own country.” For your review, I’ve attached some “Devil Worshipers.”

Vanityfair Inside Jerry Falwell Jr Unlikely Rise And Precipitous Fall
Standford LawSchool Founding Fathers Separation Of Church And State

• In the 1990s that imaginary attack on religion of “separation of church and state” was called “political correctness.” With Bill O’Reilly even claiming that Christmas was ‘under siege’ in 2004 by “secular progressives.”
• h. In the mid-1990s Falwell also promoted the Clinton Chronicles, a right wing propaganda video that accused the Clinton’s of excessive crimes all the way up to murder.

Liberty University & Controversy

• The ‘Falwells’ founded Liberty University and became puritan punishers and fined and ruined peoples academic lives for failing to live up to their “elite moral standards.” Few people understand how much harm academic death can cause someone and how likely suicide can become. Some of these sins included merely being in the same room as the opposite sex or drinking. Contrasted by the Falwell’s criminal family history and Jr’s claim his father had consistently openly drank and partied with friends before marriage. His father even apparently broke up a marriage to later claim his wife, Macel. His main tactic was incepting love letters, which was a federal crime for each instance.
• Jerry Jr would also reveal, “He became a different person to build a church and a school.”
• In 1988 the Falwells nearly lost everything due to Sr’s financial mismanagement to the tune of millions of dollars. While it’s claimed that his son helped reorganize things, restructure debts and find new funding sources, there doesn’t appear to be any articles on where those funding sources came from.

Vanityfair Inside Jerry Falwell Jr Unlikely Rise And Precipitous Fall

• On 9/11 Fallwell Sr even said, “"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'
• While other evangelicals said it was impossible to know which punishments god gave for which sins. Fallwell would later claim those words were taken “out of context.” That’s funny when it seemed like he was specifically talking to them in that moment.

Huffpost Jerry Falwell 911 Remarks
TheGuardian On Farwells 9/11 Claim
The Affair

• It would be ironic that his son, after years of advocating for purity and monogamy, would himself engage in a messy seven-year affair that shocked the evangelical community. This scandal, along with other minor scandals and financial misconduct involving tax-free financial benefits to friends from the university, starkly contrasted with the values he publicly demanded. Although the affair appeared to be consensual among the involved parties, it was overshadowed by other, less publicized but more concerning alleged crimes. Additionally, despite his minimal evangelical conviction, he was thrust into an intense spotlight that would ultimately contribute to his downfall.

NPR An Affair That Felled Evangelist Jerry Falwell Jr S Career
Politico Jerry Falwell Liberty University Loans
Falwells Fall

• It's ironic that Jerry Jr., who initially had no prior relationship with Donald Trump, would become the first evangelical leader to endorse him in 2016. This endorsement came just two months after the death of his evangelical brother, raising some suspicion to his sudden ‘change of heart.’ Reports suggest that the endorsement was part of a quid pro quo with Michael Cohen to conceal an affair casting an additional shadow over evangelicals.
• However, there was a silver lining when 2,000 members of Liberty University, where Jerry Jr. was a leading figure, signed a petition for his removal, showing a commitment to integrity within the university community.
• Add to all that, concerning comments like tweeting he would only wear a mask that had “Governor Blackface” on it, in the wake of George Floyd. Although this was arguably during his “self-destruct” phase.

Politico Jerry Falwell Trump Liberty University

• Then, upon reflection, he insisted his fall was due to endorsing Donald Trump, and not his own sins.

People How Jerry Falwell Jr Is Connected To Donald Trump
In Summary:
Jerry Falwell Sr.'s commitment to a strict evangelical approach was deeply influenced by his desire to reshape the moral landscape and possibly counteract the less savory aspects of his family's history. His vision radicalized evangelicalism, aligning it closely with far-right politics, a transformation that had lasting impacts on American political and religious culture.
Jerry Falwell Jr., however, doesn't appear to have had any widely recognized issues with racism or segregation prior to 2020, which marks a stark contrast with the controversies that exploded around him later. His leadership at Liberty University seemed to embody the ultra-conservative values his father espoused, but his personal scandals, particularly the affair with the pool boy, starkly contradicted the public persona he projected. This scandal was particularly poignant given his father's harsh stance against similar moral failings in others, highlighting a deep hypocrisy that often went unremarked in less prominent families.
The ominous saga of the Falwell’s underscores the complex dynamics within evangelical circles, where there has been a tension between public morality and private behavior. It suggests a need for a reevaluation of how evangelical leaders engage with politics and society, advocating for a return to core values that emphasize personal integrity and humility over public condemnation of others' imperfections.
This also raises broader questions about the path forward for evangelical communities. There might be merit in considering a separation of church and state interests as it’s founders supported. Such changes could potentially help the evangelical movement find a more sustainable and less divisive role in modern society, avoiding the pitfalls that ensnared the Falwells.
As a refresher for them, here’s some Jesus:

Matthew 5:43-48 (NIV)

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

And for those who follow the path of the fallen after learning of this, you’re not following the path of God, you’re following the path of the fallen angel.

u/neodestiny

Caution: Long Post
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is without doubt and still is to this day one of the most influential, powerful, and iconic figures in American history due to his steadfast and nonviolent commitment in the fight for Civil Rights, Equality, and Justice during Jim Crow Segregation in the United States. The highlight of his career as an activist came in 1963 in which he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in front of Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. in which he envisioned a nation in which his children will be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. This resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to be passed. Even after his assassination in 1968, his legacy inspired many similar Civil Rights Movements around the world.
Today, Martin Luther King, Jr. is hailed by both sides of the American Political Sphere as a Beacon of Hope on how to fight for Justice and Equality for all during turbulent times. But it's the Conservatives who constantly claim that they truly support him and follow his dream, especially in modern times and they've expressed it in a rather whitewashed and partisan fashion. The most obvious being their use of his "I Have a Dream" speech by quoting the one line that has often been cherry-picked and misinterpreted quite a lot in which they judge people not by skin but by their character. The main reason they do this is to give them the appearance that they are colorblind as their way of opposing racism. And in doing so, they consistently criticize Liberals of trying to divide the country into special interest groups and promote favoritism. As a result, they always claim that Dr. King is a Republican, let alone would've been one in this era given his views, along with the fact that he was a Christian. His niece, Alveda King even emphasized it herself.
Some of the ways that Conservatives try to supposedly live up to Dr. King's "Colorblind" Dream is by opposing supposed "Wokeness", Critical Race Theory, and the practice of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion everywhere. They also express it by opposing Affirmative Action and the use of Racial Quotas when it comes to applying for schools, universities, and jobs because they believe it causes Reverse Discrimination. In terms of nonviolence, Conservatives express their disapproval of the Black Lives Matter movement. On the basis of Christianity, Conservatives believe that Dr. King supported a fixed moral code as indicated in his Letters from Birmingham Jail since he led with love and not racial hatred by changing the lives of people and not the laws itself, along with the notion of self-sufficiency. Seeing all this, it seems like Conservatives are really desperate to prove how much America has progressed in this post-racial world in order to debunk accusations that it isn't a racist country and that's why they always prop up Dr. King by claiming that they follow his dream and will continue to do so. Well.....up until now.
During this year's Martin Luther King Day, a string of prominent Conservative activists and organizations suddenly turned on him. Starting off with Charlie Kirk of the Youth Conservative Movement Turning Point USA, who launched a blistering anti-MLK campaign in which he supposedly dispelled the alleged myths surrounding his popularity. He accused Dr. King of being a "Bad Person" and that his "Sainthood will cause Black voters to realize it's being used against them to suppress the individual." He even went further by stating that "we made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s" accusing it as "a way to get rid of the First Amendment". A while ago, the organization marketed the Conservative image of Dr. King when they sold $55 T-Shirts with his name as well as stickers of him with the words "Let Freedom Ring". Kirk was later joined by the Daily Wire's Matt Walsh who accused him of being a "communist". In fact, he railed against Dr. King a few years ago by accusing him of being a Womanizer, Adulterer, Plagiarizer, etc. Coming after Walsh was Human Events editor, conspiracy theorist, and fellow Turning Point USA alumna Jack Posobiec, who labeled Dr. King "a God of the Left" and stating that "the real legacy of the 1960s was enshrining Racial Discrimination and Race Consciousness into the Federal Bureaucracy." And finally, a popular Conservative Twitter account called "EndWokeness" called Dr. King "a Racial Marxist" because he "did not support a Colorblind Meritocracy" after it cited his quote on Wealth Distribution. What's even worse is that even non-White Conservatives hate him. Two examples include a commentator named Vince Everett Ellison and former football player and sports columnist, Jason Whitlock. The latest editions to the lineup of Black Guilt Conservatives, they railed against Dr. King and the passing of the Civil Rights by stating that they worsened the Black community by drifting them away from God into "Democratic Dependency". They even accused him of the same crimes as Walsh did.
With the sudden change in tone and emphasis from the Right against Dr. King, you have to ask yourself why they're doing this and what caused them to believe this way. And this is not an extremist fringe of the Right that some would expect to hear from. All of these are Mainstream Right-Wing Figures who have direct lineage to the GOP, including the current presidential nominee, Donald Trump. That's as Establishment you can get. Their remarks have been criticized by a lot of people from both sides and surprisingly by some Black Conservatives. One of them was Pastor Darrell Scott, a former faith advisor of Trump, who these days, is one of a few Black Conservatives who has been calling out other Black Conservatives for tearing down their own race in order to elevate their status among others, a very notorious habit of them. He criticized Kirk for inspiring a Hitler Youth. Another was Kimberly Klacik, who in 2020, gained viral for her campaign video stating that Black Lives don't matter to Democrats when she was running for Maryland's 7th Congressional District following the death of Civil Rights Leader, Elijah Cummings, who was the incumbent. She criticized Kirk for his remarks stating that his rhetoric will prevent Blacks from voting Republican. Even with that said, there have been instances in which Conservatives themselves have questioned the Civil Rights Act and many of them have been pretty negative. If you check out other Conservative websites and especially here on Reddit, many of their criticisms echo the same sentiments as those Pundits stating that it was unconstitutional and that in infringed on the First Amendment, particularly the Notion of Freedom of Association.
That being said, there is some silver lining to this. Now, that they exposed themselves for what they really of think Dr. King, I think it's time for them to admit that they never really liked him in the first place, let alone understood who he really was and what he really stood for. In fact, they never really liked him at all. All they did was whitewash him and cherry-pick his ideas and speech for own Partisan Agenda. Dr. King constantly talked about the notion of Black Pride and campaigned about the need for Reparations. He also supported Affirmative Action stating in 1965 that "a Society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the Negro. Dr. King realized that our society was created in a way that managed to disadvantage the many for the benefit the few, and that America's Racial Hierarchy was connected to its Class Hierarchy. He also had political beliefs that manifested through both Racial Reconciliation and Concrete Policy Changes that could help restructure and benefit a divided and unequal nation. This is the reason why he referred to himself as a Democratic Socialist as he wanted a "Radical Redistribution of Economic and Political Power". In fact, he argued that true Equality can only be achieved, not just through legal rights, but through an equal distribution of resources. This is evident when he said “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.” This is the exact vision that Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders believed in. After all, he did participate in the March on Washington in 1963. In regards to Police Brutality, while Dr. King opposed violent protest, he did acknowledge that a Riot is the language of the Unheard and that it came from a place of Desperation. In fact, in his "I Have a Dream" Speech, he stated that Blacks could "never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the Victim of the Unspeakable Horrors of Police Brutality." After all, he was hounded by the FBI, was called a Communist, broke the law in protest of race-based Segregation and Violence, was thrown in jail, advocated Protests and Sit-Ins, opposed White Rule of Society, and was assassinated for his Race and his views on Race. Regarding the quote about the Content of Character from said speech, Dr. King's daughter, Bernice King stated that using solely that quote diminishes the purpose of the entire speech because her father's dream and work included "eradicating Racism, not ignoring it."
If anything, this goes to show that is Dr. King were around today, he would be heavily criticized for being Woke, politically correct, a Communist, a Race Hustler, and a member of the Radical Left. And we all know that the Right hates those ideologies passionately. But here's the thing, he never considered himself a Democrat, let alone a Republican. He was an Independent as he felt that both parties are the same. And reducing his legacy to a single quote diminishes the gains that he fought for and believed in. This especially goes to a lot of Conservatives out there who claim to follow his lead using that quote because they interpret them in a way that benefits them today than how he meant them back then. For you to claim that he didn't care about Skin Color is like saying Susan B. Anthony didn't care about Gender. And to those Conservatives who now hate him, including Black, I hope you're OK with people getting treated unfairly, including your own. Who knew being seen as an Equal is a Negative in your eyes.

Caution: Long Post
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is without doubt and still is to this day one of the most influential, powerful, and iconic figures in American history due to his steadfast and nonviolent commitment in the fight for Civil Rights, Equality, and Justice during Jim Crow Segregation in the United States. The highlight of his career as an activist came in 1963 in which he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in front of Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. in which he envisioned a nation in which his children will be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. This resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to be passed. Even after his assassination in 1968, his legacy inspired many similar Civil Rights Movements around the world.
Today, Martin Luther King, Jr. is hailed by both sides of the American political sphere as a beacon of hope on how to fight for justice and equality for all during turbulent times. But it's the Conservatives who constantly claim that they truly support him and follow his dream, especially in modern times and they've expressed it in a rather whitewashed and partisan fashion. The most obvious being their use of his "I Have a Dream" speech by quoting the one line that has often been cherry-picked and misinterpreted quite a lot in which they judge people not by skin but by their character. The main reason they do this is to give them the appearance that they are colorblind as their way of opposing racism. And in doing so, they consistently criticize Liberals of trying to divide the country into special interest groups and promote favoritism. As a result, they always claim that Dr. King is a Republican, let alone would've been one in this era given his views, along with the fact that he was a Christian. His niece, Alveda King even emphasized it herself.
Some of the ways that Conservatives try to supposedly live up to Dr. King's "Colorblind" Dream is by opposing supposed "Wokeness", Critical Race Theory, and the practice of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion everywhere. They also express it by opposing Affirmative Action and the use of Racial Quotas when it comes to applying for schools, universities, and jobs because they believe it causes Reverse Discrimination. In terms of nonviolence, Conservatives express their disapproval of the Black Lives Matter movement. On the basis of Christianity, Conservatives believe that Dr. King supported a Fixed Moral Code as indicated in his Letters from Birmingham Jail since he led with love and not racial hatred by changing the lives of people and not the laws itself, along with the notion of self-sufficiency. Seeing all this, it seems like Conservatives are really desperate to prove how much America has progressed in this post-racial world in order to debunk accusations that it isn't a racist country and that's why they always prop up Dr. King by claiming that they follow his dream and will continue to do so. Well.....up until now.
During this year's Martin Luther King Day, a string of prominent Conservative activists and organizations suddenly turned on him. Starting off with Charlie Kirk of the Youth Conservative Movement Turning Point USA, who launched a blistering anti-MLK campaign in which he supposedly dispelled the alleged myths surrounding his popularity. He accused Dr. King of being a "Bad Person" and that his "Sainthood will cause Black voters to realize it's being used against them to suppress the individual." He even went further by stating that "we made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s" accusing it as "a way to get rid of the First Amendment". A while ago, the organization marketed the Conservative image of Dr. King when they sold $55 T-Shirts with his name as well as stickers of him with the words "Let Freedom Ring". Kirk was later joined by the Daily Wire's Matt Walsh who accused him of being a "communist". In fact, he railed against Dr. King a few years ago by accusing him of being a Womanizer, Adulterer, Plagiarizer, etc. Coming after Walsh was Human Events Editor, Conspiracy Theorist, and fellow Turning Point USA Alumna Jack Posobiec, who labeled Dr. King "a God of the Left" and stating that "the real legacy of the 1960s was enshrining Racial Discrimination and Race Consciousness into the Federal Bureaucracy." And finally, a popular Conservative Twitter account called "EndWokeness" called Dr. King "a Racial Marxist" because he "did not support a Colorblind Meritocracy" after it cited his quote on Wealth Distribution. What's even worse is that even non-White Conservatives hate him. Two examples include a commentator named Vince Everett Ellison and former football player and sports columnist, Jason Whitlock. The latest editions to the lineup of Black Guilt Conservatives, they railed against Dr. King and the passing of the Civil Rights by stating that they worsened the Black community by drifting them away from God into "Democratic Dependency". They even accused him of the same crimes as Walsh did.
With the sudden change in tone and emphasis from the Right against Dr. King, you have to ask yourself why they're doing this and what caused them to believe this way. And this is not an extremist fringe of the Right that some would expect to hear from. All of these are Mainstream Right-Wing Figures who have direct lineage to the GOP, including the current presidential nominee, Donald Trump. That's as Establishment you can get. Their remarks have been criticized by a lot of people from both sides and surprisingly by some Black Conservatives. One of them was Pastor Darrell Scott, a former faith advisor of Trump, who these days, is one of a few Black Conservatives who has been calling out other Black Conservatives for tearing down their own race in order to elevate their status among others, a very notorious habit of them. He criticized Kirk for inspiring a Hitler Youth. Another was Kimberly Klacik, who in 2020, gained viral for her campaign video stating that Black Lives don't matter to Democrats when she was running for Maryland's 7th Congressional District following the death of Civil Rights Leader, Elijah Cummings, who was the Incumbent. She criticized Kirk for his remarks stating that his rhetoric will prevent Blacks from voting Republican. Even with that said, there have been instances in which Conservatives themselves have questioned the Civil Rights Act and many of them have been pretty negative. If you check out other Conservative websites and especially here on Reddit, many of their criticisms echo the same sentiments as those Pundits stating that it was unconstitutional and that in infringed on the First Amendment, particularly the Notion of Freedom of Association.
That being said, there is some silver lining to this. Now, that they exposed themselves for what they really of think Dr. King, I think it's time for them to admit that they never really liked him in the first place, let alone understood who he really was and what he really stood for. In fact, they never really liked him at all. All they did was whitewash him and cherry-pick his ideas and speech for own Partisan Agenda. Dr. King constantly talked about the notion of Black Pride and campaigned about the need for Reparations. He also supported Affirmative Action stating in 1965 that "a Society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the Negro. Dr. King realized that our society was created in a way that managed to disadvantage the many for the benefit the few, and that America's Racial Hierarchy was connected to its Class Hierarchy. He also had political beliefs that manifested through both Racial Reconciliation and Concrete Policy Changes that could help restructure and benefit a divided and unequal nation. This is the reason why he referred to himself as a Democratic Socialist as he wanted a "Radical Redistribution of Economic and Political Power". In fact, he argued that true Equality can only be achieved, not just through legal rights, but through an equal distribution of resources. This is evident when he said “Call it Democracy, or call it Democratic Socialism, but there must be a better Distribution of Wealth within this Country for all God’s Children.” This is the exact vision that Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders believed in. After all, he did participate in the March on Washington in 1963. In regards to Police Brutality, while Dr. King opposed violent protest, he did acknowledge that a riot is the language of the Unheard and that it came from a place of Desperation. In fact, in his "I Have a Dream" Speech, he stated that Blacks could "never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the Victim of the Unspeakable Horrors of Police Brutality." After all, he was hounded by the FBI, was called a Communist, broke the law in protest of race-based Segregation and Violence, was thrown in jail, advocated Protests and Sit-Ins, opposed White Rule of Society, and was assassinated for his Race and his views on Race. Regarding the quote about the Content of Character from said speech, Dr. King's daughter, Bernice King stated that using solely that quote diminishes the purpose of the entire speech because her father's dream and work included "eradicating Racism, not ignoring it."
If anything, this goes to show that is Dr. King were around today, he would be heavily criticized for being Woke, politically correct, a Communist, a Race Hustler, and a Member of the Radical Left. And we all know that the Right hates those ideologies passionately. But here's the thing, he never considered himself a Democrat, let alone a Republican. He was an Independent as he felt that both parties are the same. And reducing his legacy to a single quote diminishes the gains that he fought for and believed in. This especially goes to a lot of Conservatives out there who claim to follow his lead using that quote because they interpret them in a way that benefits them today than how he meant them back then. For you to claim that he didn't care about Skin Color is like saying Susan B. Anthony didn't care about Gender. And to those Conservatives who now hate him, including Black, I hope you're OK with people getting treated unfairly, including your own. Who knew being seen as an Equal is a Negative in your eyes.

There is a growing realization among a handful of observant bible prophecy watchers around the world that Donald J. Trump perfectly fits the descriptive criteria for the end times beast/antichrist given to us in both the old and new testament of the Bible. At present, no other AC candidate comes close to fitting all of the criteria like Trump does.
If the millennial day pattern prophecy is true, 30-33 AD (Christ's crucifixion) + 2,000 years (church age) - 3½ or 7 years (tribulation period) = 2023-2026 (Rapture?).
Assuming this chronology is roughly correct, the Beast/Antichrist must be alive and breathing on earth today, if he is to fulfill his important role in the end times.
The exact day or hour of Christ's return will never be known, but we are told in scripture that we will know the season of His return, and that it won't catch us off guard like it will for unbelievers. I strongly believe for multiple reasons that we are in the final moments of the church age. We must continue to prepare ourselves mentally and spiritually for what's coming.
On the 14th of June 1946, during a blood moon, Donald J. Trump was born in the New York City borough of Queens. On that same day, Infamous cabal occultist Aleister Crowley sent a letter to fellow Thelemite occultist John McMurty that the members Jack Parsons, L Ron. Hubbard, and others were producing a "Moon Child"; the Freemasons "Chosen One", that is, the biblical Beast/Anti-Christ.
In the following decades, masonic movie directors in Hollywood have released many iconic movies featuring arcane esoteric references to Donald Trump, as well as other related events of deep occult significance.
Donald Trump appears to have peculiar numerological connections to the magic numbers 88, 777, 911, and 1776.
700 days after Trump's birth, the prophetically significant rebirth of the modern state of Israel would occur on 5/14/1948.
Further, 70 years, 7 months, and 7 days after his birth, he would be inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States.
Seven months after his inauguration, the first Great American Solar Eclipse would occur on 8/21/2017, with the moon's path of totality dividing the continental USA in half, entering over the 33rd state, exiting at the 33rd parallel. This eclipse also passed over seven towns with the name "Salem". Trump himself infamously observed this eclipse with the first lady from the White House balcony, briefly looking up at the sun without eclipse shades.
Precisely two years to the day after the first solar eclipse, on 8/21/2019, Donald Trump made the odd proclamation "I Am the Chosen One" and also sent out a tweet likening himself to the "second coming of god" and the "king of Israel", which is blasphemy to God.
In another strange coincidence, exactly halfway between the dates of these two eclipses (December 14, 2020), the first mRNA covid vaccine was administered to a patient in the USA.
In 2018, a secret 80-minute cell phone recording recording was taken during a Washington, D.C. donor dinner with President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman in attendance. Parallels are drawn between Trump and the Jewish Messiah using gematria. Parnas then presents a unknown gift to Trump from “the head rabbi of Ukraine” and "some rabbis in Israel". He explains that according to Jewish numerology, known as gematria, the letters in Trump’s name add up to 424, which is the same total attributed to the long-awaited Messiah. (watch here)
On 10/15/2017, Donald Trump made a cryptic remark: "Maybe this represents the calm before the storm". When asked by a reported what he meant, he said "You'll find out" and winked his eye.
Donald Trump has also narrated the cryptic "Snake Poem" at countless rallies. The final line that Trump emphasizes after the woman receives the viscous bite is: "You knew damn well I was a snake, before you let me in!"
When Trump is asked by political commentator Frank Luntz in a now infamous video if he ever asks God for forgiveness, he coldly responds: "that's a tough question," proceeds to say that he identifies as a "Protestant," and his pastor was "the late great Vincent Peele" (who incidentally turns out to be a 33rd degree Freemason). Trump then continues dodging the original question, so Luntz asks him once again if he asks God for forgiveness. Trump then looks at him smugly and finally admits that he doesn't, and that he simply moves on from his sins without repentance and "tries to do better" on his own accord.
The sinister Qanon cult movement began in the murky depths of the web during Trump's rise to power on the campaign trail. It has since become a worldwide grassroots movement, with fervent and fanatical followers perceiving Trump as a messianic figure who is the one that is destined to "take down the Satanic pedophile globalists" and save America - even the whole world itself.
On 4/29/21 Donald Trump proclaimed himself "The father of the vaccine". Under Trump's term as president, Operation Warp Speed sent untold billions to pharmaceutical companies to rapidly develop and produce the mRNA covid vaccines. Trump likened this project's significance to that of a "2nd Manhattan Project".
Trump also has a remarkable obsession with nuclear weapons, which was demonstrated during his "big button/little button" threats made against North Korea, as well as the occasional remark such as his suggestion to nuke incoming hurricanes to stop them and more recently against Iran with WW3 looming in the horizon.
https://www.gq.com/story/the-cult-of-trump

I'm new to this subreddit, but I have seen many of its posts and browsed. This is my first post. I'm not sure how to accurately formulate my worries so I'll put it simply. I'm not here to be hateful or belittle either, I hope my kindness and gratefulness for insight will reflect that, I've grown up in a very religious setting with good Christian people and I want to know more.
God has been something over the years I've felt more and more willing to accept yet always as I feel like I am able to I see something or feel something that draws me away from this. So my questions are:

1. The Bible seems to sit women below men, stating they may not speak within church, that their husbands lead and they follow. They presume a secondary role. It seems difficult to accept and feels like it could be used as a weapon against me quite easily-nevertheless being unable to attain a masculine title or level seems hurtful as I've been wanting to enter religious practice and studies. Which has also lead me to the fact:
   
2. Women cannot be pastors in the primary sects of Christianity? If I were to still pursue this would I be seen as lesser, and struggle with constant strife of my position?
   
3. Not sure if this is easily answerable. Is God a good or bad-Though God truly wants the best for us why did he bring us into this chaotic life, if we are born to be troubled, then why are we born at all? It seems cruel that this is how things are set that indescribable horrors are valid because 'it is in a design'. Yet I know no one here can speak for God, I just makes me feel the wrong way. Like there's some mandella catalouge version of God replaced by some evil that's let the world get this bad.
   
4. Is it okay to see the bible as figurative, and not 100% literal, I know some people will only go off what is written out in the Bible down to the letter but is it a actual good way of going about it? Are there pastors that follow this kind of direction? I'm been worrying about this as I am not cis-gendered and I am a lesbian. I've spoken with a catholic, my ex, who said that the 'you shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination' is mistranslated? However I've found many other parts of the scripture that plainly repeat this, homosexuals are abomination in the eyes of God, which again hurts quite badly to think that my existence is disgusting to the wider religious community. I know God will accept me for who I am but feeling like someone who should be 'fixed' and to avoid temptation of what I've seen as being myself isn't a great situation.
   
5. Is there a version of the Bible that could be seen as a 'truer' text, does that depend on the denomination?
   

That is all I could think of for now, I apologies for the ramble like nature of the text. And thank you again for your intrigue and time spent, I know it takes a lot of time and effort.

By what means the papers out of which I have made a connected story came into my hands is the last point which the reader will learn from these pages. But it is necessary to prefix to my extracts from them a statement of the form in which I possess them. They consist, then, partly of a series of collections for a book of travels, such a volume as was a common product of the forties and fifties. Horace Marryat's Journal of a Residence in Jutland and the Danish Isles is a fair specimen of the class to which I allude. These books usually treated of some unfamiliar district on the Continent. They were illustrated with woodcuts or steel plates. They gave details of hotel accommodation, and of means of communication, such as we now expect to find in any well-regulated guide-book, and they dealt largely in reported conversations with intelligent foreigners, racy innkeepers and garrulous peasants. In a word, they were chatty. Begun with the idea of furnishing material for such a book, my papers as they progressed assumed the character of a record of one single personal experience, and this record was continued up to the very eve, almost, of its termination. The writer was a Mr. Wraxall. For my knowledge of him I have to depend entirely on the evidence his writings afford, and from these I deduce that he was a man past middle age, possessed of some private means, and very much alone in the world. He had, it seems, no settled abode in England, but was a denizen of hotels and boarding-houses. It is probable that he entertained the idea of settling down at some future time which never came; and I think it also likely that the Pantechnicon fire in the early seventies must have destroyed a great deal that would have thrown light on his antecedents, for he refers once or twice to property of his that was warehoused at that establishment. It is further apparent that Mr. Wraxall had published a book, and that it treated of a holiday he had once taken in Brittany. More than this I cannot say about his work, because a diligent search in bibliographical works has convinced me that it must have appeared either anonymously or under a pseudonym. As to his character, it is not difficult to form some superficial opinion. He must have been an intelligent and cultivated man. It seems that he was near being a Fellow of his college at Oxford—Brasenose, as I judge from the Calendar. His besetting fault was pretty clearly that of over-inquisitiveness, possibly a good fault in a traveller, certainly a fault for which this traveller paid dearly enough in the end. On what proved to be his last expedition, he was plotting another book. Scandinavia, a region not widely known to Englishmen forty years ago, had struck him as an interesting field. He must have lighted on some old books of Swedish history or memoirs, and the idea had struck him that there was room for a book descriptive of travel in Sweden, interspersed with episodes from the history of some of the great Swedish families. He procured letters of introduction, therefore, to some persons of quality in Sweden, and set out thither in the early summer of 1863. Of his travels in the North there is no need to speak, nor of his residence of some weeks in Stockholm. I need only mention that some savant resident there put him on the track of an important collection of family papers belonging to the proprietors of an ancient manor-house in Vestergothland, and obtained for him permission to examine them. The manor-house, or herrgård, in question is to be called Råbäck (pronounced something like Roebeck), though that is not its name. It is one of the best buildings of its kind in all the country, and the picture of it in Dablenberg's Suecia antiqua et moderna, engraved in 1694, shows it very much as the tourist may see it to-day. It was built soon after 1600, and is, roughly speaking, very much like an English house of that period in respect of material—red-brick with stone facings—and style. The man who built it was a scion of the great house of De la Gardie, and his descendants possess it still. De la Gardie is the name by which I will designate them when mention of them becomes necessary. They received Mr. Wraxall with great kindness and courtesy, and pressed him to stay in the house as long as his researches lasted. But, preferring to be independent, and mistrusting his powers of conversing in Swedish, he settled himself at the village inn, which turned out quite sufficiently comfortable, at any rate during the summer months. This arrangement would entail a short walk daily to and from the manor-house of something under a mile. The house itself stood in a park, and was protected—we should say grown up—with large old timber. Near it you found the walled garden, and then entered a close wood fringing one of the small lakes with which the whole country is pitted. Then came the wall of the demesne, and you climbed a steep knoll—a knob of rock lightly covered with soil—and on the top of this stood the church, fenced in with tall dark trees. It was a curious building to English eyes. The nave and aisles were low, and filled with pews and galleries. In the western gallery stood the handsome old organ, gaily painted, and with silver pipes. The ceiling was flat, and had been adorned by a seventeenth-century artist with a strange and hideous "Last Judgment," full of lurid flames, falling cities, burning ships, crying souls, and brown and smiling demons. Handsome brass coronæ hung from the roof; the pulpit was like a doll's-house, covered with little painted wooden cherubs and saints; a stand with three hour-glasses was hinged to the preacher's desk. Such sights as these may be seen in many a church in Sweden now, but what distinguished this one was an addition to the original building. At the eastern end of the north aisle the builder of the manor-house had erected a mausoleum for himself and his family. It was a largish eight-sided building, lighted by a series of oval windows, and it had a domed roof, topped by a kind of pumpkin-shaped object rising into a spire, a form in which Swedish architects greatly delighted. The roof was of copper externally, and was painted black, while the walls, in common with those of the church, were staringly white. To this mausoleum there was no access from the church. It had a portal and steps of its own on the northern side. Past the churchyard the path to the village goes, and not more than three or four minutes bring you to the inn door. On the first day of his stay at Råbäck Mr. Wraxall found the church door open, and made those notes of the interior which I have epitomized. Into the mausoleum, however, he could not make his way. He could by looking through the keyhole just descry that there were fine marble effigies and sarcophagi of copper, and a wealth of armorial ornament, which made him very anxious to spend some time in investigation. The papers he had come to examine at the manor-house proved to be of just the kind he wanted for his book. There were family correspondence, journals, and account-books of the earliest owners of the estate, very carefully kept and clearly written, full of amusing and picturesque detail. The first De la Gardie appeared in them as a strong and capable man. Shortly after the building of the mansion there had been a period of distress in the district, and the peasants had risen and attacked several châteaux and done some damage. The owner of Råbäck took a leading part in suppressing the trouble, and there was reference to executions of ringleaders and severe punishments inflicted with no sparing hand. The portrait of this Magnus de la Gardie was one of the best in the house, and Mr. Wraxall studied it with no little interest after his day's work. He gives no detailed description of it, but I gather that the face impressed him rather by its power than by its beauty or goodness; in fact, he writes that Count Magnus was an almost phenomenally ugly man. On this day Mr. Wraxall took his supper with the family, and walked back in the late but still bright evening. "I must remember," he writes, "to ask the sexton if he can let me into the mausoleum at the church. He evidently has access to it himself, for I saw him to-night standing on the steps, and, as I thought, locking or unlocking the door." I find that early on the following day Mr. Wraxall had some conversation with his landlord. His setting it down at such length as he does surprised me at first; but I soon realized that the papers I was reading were, at least in their beginning, the materials for the book he was meditating, and that it was to have been one of those quasi-journalistic productions which admit of the introduction of an admixture of conversational matter. His object, he says, was to find out whether any traditions of Count Magnus de la Gardie lingered on in the scenes of that gentleman's activity, and whether the popular estimate of him were favourable or not. He found that the Count was decidedly not a favourite. If his tenants came late to their work on the days which they owed to him as Lord of the Manor, they were set on the wooden horse, or flogged and branded in the manor-house yard. One or two cases there were of men who had occupied lands which encroached on the lord's domain, and whose houses had been mysteriously burnt on a winter's night, with the whole family inside. But what seemed to dwell on the innkeeper's mind most—for he returned to the subject more than once—was that the Count had been on the Black Pilgrimage, and had brought something or someone back with him.
You will naturally inquire, as Mr. Wraxall did, what the Black Pilgrimage may have been. But your curiosity on the point must remain unsatisfied for the time being, just as his did. The landlord was evidently unwilling to give a full answer, or indeed any answer, on the point, and, being called out for a moment, trotted off with obvious alacrity, only putting his head in at the door a few minutes afterwards to say that he was called away to Skara, and should not be back till evening. So Mr. Wraxall had to go unsatisfied to his day's work at the manor-house. The papers on which he was just then engaged soon put his thoughts into another channel, for he had to occupy himself with glancing over the correspondence between Sophia Albertina in Stockholm and her married cousin Ulrica Leonora at Råbäck in the years 1705-1710. The letters were of exceptional interest from the light they threw upon the culture of that period in Sweden, as anyone can testify who has read the full edition of them in the publications of the Swedish Historical Manuscripts Commission. In the afternoon he had done with these, and after returning the boxes in which they were kept to their places on the shelf, he proceeded, very naturally, to take down some of the volumes nearest to them, in order to determine which of them had best be his principal subject of investigation next day. The shelf he had hit upon was occupied mostly by a collection of account-books in the writing of the first Count Magnus. But one among them was not an account-book, but a book of alchemical and other tracts in another sixteenth-century hand. Not being very familiar with alchemical literature, Mr. Wraxall spends much space which he might have spared in setting out the names and beginnings of the various treatises: The book of the Phœnix, book of the Thirty Words, book of the Toad, book of Miriam, Turba philosophorum, and so forth; and then he announces with a good deal of circumstance his delight at finding, on a leaf originally left blank near the middle of the book, some writing of Count Magnus himself headed "Liber nigræ peregrinationis." It is true that only a few lines were written, but there was quite enough to show that the landlord had that morning been referring to a belief at least as old as the time of Count Magnus, and probably shared by him. This is the English of what was written: "If any man desires to obtain a long life, if he would obtain a faithful messenger and see the blood of his enemies, it is necessary that he should first go into the city of Chorazin, and there salute the prince...." Here there was an erasure of one word, not very thoroughly done, so that Mr. Wraxall felt pretty sure that he was right in reading it as aëris ("of the air"). But there was no more of the text copied, only a line in Latin: "Quære reliqua hujus materiei inter secretiora" (See the rest of this matter among the more private things). It could not be denied that this threw a rather lurid light upon the tastes and beliefs of the Count; but to Mr. Wraxall, separated from him by nearly three centuries, the thought that he might have added to his general forcefulness alchemy, and to alchemy something like magic, only made him a more picturesque figure; and when, after a rather prolonged contemplation of his picture in the hall, Mr. Wraxall set out on his homeward way, his mind was full of the thought of Count Magnus. He had no eyes for his surroundings, no perception of the evening scents of the woods or the evening light on the lake; and when all of a sudden he pulled up short, he was astonished to find himself already at the gate of the churchyard, and within a few minutes of his dinner. His eyes fell on the mausoleum. "Ah," he said, "Count Magnus, there you are. I should dearly like to see you." "Like many solitary men," he writes, "I have a habit of talking to myself aloud; and, unlike some of the Greek and Latin particles, I do not expect an answer. Certainly, and perhaps fortunately in this case, there was neither voice nor any that regarded: only the woman who, I suppose, was cleaning up the church, dropped some metallic object on the floor, whose clang startled me. Count Magnus, I think, sleeps sound enough." That same evening the landlord of the inn, who had heard Mr. Wraxall say that he wished to see the clerk or deacon (as he would be called in Sweden) of the parish, introduced him to that official in the inn parlour. A visit to the De la Gardie tomb-house was soon arranged for the next day, and a little general conversation ensued. Mr. Wraxall, remembering that one function of Scandinavian deacons is to teach candidates for Confirmation, thought he would refresh his own memory on a Biblical point. "Can you tell me," he said, "anything about Chorazin?" The deacon seemed startled, but readily reminded him how that village had once been denounced. "To be sure," said Mr. Wraxall; "it is, I suppose, quite a ruin now?" "So I expect," replied the deacon. "I have heard some of our old priests say that Antichrist is to be born there; and there are tales——" "Ah! what tales are those?" Mr. Wraxall put in. "Tales, I was going to say, which I have forgotten," said the deacon; and soon after that he said good night. The landlord was now alone, and at Mr. Wraxall's mercy; and that inquirer was not inclined to spare him. "Herr Nielsen," he said, "I have found out something about the Black Pilgrimage. You may as well tell me what you know. What did the Count bring back with him?" Swedes are habitually slow, perhaps, in answering, or perhaps the landlord was an exception. I am not sure; but Mr. Wraxall notes that the landlord spent at least one minute in looking at him before he said anything at all. Then he came close up to his guest, and with a good deal of effort he spoke: "Mr. Wraxall, I can tell you this one little tale, and no more—not any more. You must not ask anything when I have done. In my grandfather's time—that is, ninety-two years ago—there were two men who said: 'The Count is dead; we do not care for him. We will go to-night and have a free hunt in his wood'—the long wood on the hill that you have seen behind Råbäck. Well, those that heard them say this, they said: 'No, do not go; we are sure you will meet with persons walking who should not be walking. They should be resting, not walking.' These men laughed. There were no forest-men to keep the wood, because no one wished to hunt there. The family were not here at the house. These men could do what they wished. "Very well, they go to the wood that night. My grandfather was sitting here in this room. It was the summer, and a light night. With the window open, he could see out to the wood, and hear. "So he sat there, and two or three men with him, and they listened. At first they hear nothing at all; then they hear someone—you know how far away it is—they hear someone scream, just as if the most inside part of his soul was twisted out of him. All of them in the room caught hold of each other, and they sat so for three-quarters of an hour. Then they hear someone else, only about three hundred ells off. They hear him laugh out loud: it was not one of those two men that laughed, and, indeed, they have all of them said that it was not any man at all. After that they hear a great door shut. "Then, when it was just light with the sun, they all went to the priest. They said to him: "'Father, put on your gown and your ruff, and come to bury these men, Anders Bjornsen and Hans Thorbjorn.' "You understand that they were sure these men were dead. So they went to the wood—my grandfather never forgot this. He said they were all like so many dead men themselves. The priest, too, he was in a white fear. He said when they came to him: "'I heard one cry in the night, and I heard one laugh afterwards. If I cannot forget that, I shall not be able to sleep again.' "So they went to the wood, and they found these men on the edge of the wood. Hans Thorbjorn was standing with his back against a tree, and all the time he was pushing with his hands—pushing something away from him which was not there. So he was not dead. And they led him away, and took him to the house at Nykjoping, and he died before the winter; but he went on pushing with his hands. Also Anders Bjornsen was there; but he was dead. And I tell you this about Anders Bjornsen, that he was once a beautiful man, but now his face was not there, because the flesh of it was sucked away off the bones. You understand that? My grandfather did not forget that. And they laid him on the bier which they brought, and they put a cloth over his head, and the priest walked before; and they began to sing the psalm for the dead as well as they could. So, as they were singing the end of the first verse, one fell down, who was carrying the head of the bier, and the others looked back, and they saw that the cloth had fallen off, and the eyes of Anders Bjornsen were looking up, because there was nothing to close over them. And this they could not bear. Therefore the priest laid the cloth upon him, and sent for a spade, and they buried him in that place." The next day Mr. Wraxall records that the deacon called for him soon after his breakfast, and took him to the church and mausoleum. He noticed that the key of the latter was hung on a nail just by the pulpit, and it occurred to him that, as the church door seemed to be left unlocked as a rule, it would not be difficult for him to pay a second and more private visit to the monuments if there proved to be more of interest among them than could be digested at first. The building, when he entered it, he found not unimposing. The monuments, mostly large erections of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were dignified if luxuriant, and the epitaphs and heraldry were copious. The central space of the domed room was occupied by three copper sarcophagi, covered with finely-engraved ornament. Two of them had, as is commonly the case in Denmark and Sweden, a large metal crucifix on the lid. The third, that of Count Magnus, as it appeared, had, instead of that, a full-length effigy engraved upon it, and round the edge were several bands of similar ornament representing various scenes. One was a battle, with cannon belching out smoke, and walled towns, and troops of pikemen. Another showed an execution. In a third, among trees, was a man running at full speed, with flying hair and outstretched hands. After him followed a strange form; it would be hard to say whether the artist had intended it for a man, and was unable to give the requisite similitude, or whether it was intentionally made as monstrous as it looked. In view of the skill with which the rest of the drawing was done, Mr. Wraxall felt inclined to adopt the latter idea. The figure was unduly short, and was for the most part muffled in a hooded garment which swept the ground. The only part of the form which projected from that shelter was not shaped like any hand or arm. Mr. Wraxall compares it to the tentacle of a devil-fish, and continues: "On seeing this, I said to myself, 'This, then, which is evidently an allegorical representation of some kind—a fiend pursuing a hunted soul—may be the origin of the story of Count Magnus and his mysterious companion. Let us see how the huntsman is pictured: doubtless it will be a demon blowing his horn.'" But, as it turned out, there was no such sensational figure, only the semblance of a cloaked man on a hillock, who stood leaning on a stick, and watching the hunt with an interest which the engraver had tried to express in his attitude. Mr. Wraxall noted the finely-worked and massive steel padlocks—three in number—which secured the sarcophagus. One of them, he saw, was detached, and lay on the pavement. And then, unwilling to delay the deacon longer or to waste his own working-time, he made his way onward to the manor-house. It is curious," he notes, "how on retracing a familiar path one's thoughts engross one to the absolute exclusion of surrounding objects. To-night, for the second time, I had entirely failed to notice where I was going (I had planned a private visit to the tomb-house to copy the epitaphs), when I suddenly, as it were, awoke to consciousness, and found myself (as before) turning in at the churchyard gate, and, I believe, singing or chanting some such words as, 'Are you awake, Count Magnus? Are you asleep, Count Magnus?' and then something more which I have failed to recollect. It seemed to me that I must have been behaving in this nonsensical way for some time." He found the key of the mausoleum where he had expected to find it, and copied the greater part of what he wanted; in fact, he stayed until the light began to fail him. "I must have been wrong," he writes, "in saying that one of the padlocks of my Count's sarcophagus was unfastened; I see to-night that two are loose. I picked both up, and laid them carefully on the window-ledge, after trying unsuccessfully to close them. The remaining one is still firm, and, though I take it to be a spring lock, I cannot guess how it is opened. Had I succeeded in undoing it, I am almost afraid I should have taken the liberty of opening the sarcophagus. It is strange, the interest I feel in the personality of this, I fear, somewhat ferocious and grim old noble." The day following was, as it turned out, the last of Mr. Wraxall's stay at Råbäck. He received letters connected with certain investments which made it desirable that he should return to England; his work among the papers was practically done, and travelling was slow. He decided, therefore, to make his farewells, put some finishing touches to his notes, and be off. These finishing touches and farewells, as it turned out, took more time than he had expected. The hospitable family insisted on his staying to dine with them—they dined at three—and it was verging on half-past six before he was outside the iron gates of Råbäck. He dwelt on every step of his walk by the lake, determined to saturate himself, now that he trod it for the last time, in the sentiment of the place and hour. And when he reached the summit of the churchyard knoll, he lingered for many minutes, gazing at the limitless prospect of woods near and distant, all dark beneath a sky of liquid green. When at last he turned to go, the thought struck him that surely he must bid farewell to Count Magnus as well as the rest of the De la Gardies. The church was but twenty yards away, and he knew where the key of the mausoleum hung. It was not long before he was standing over the great copper coffin, and, as usual, talking to himself aloud. "You may have been a bit of a rascal in your time, Magnus," he was saying, "but for all that I should like to see you, or, rather——" "Just at that instant," he says, "I felt a blow on my foot. Hastily enough I drew it back, and something fell on the pavement with a clash. It was the third, the last of the three padlocks which had fastened the sarcophagus. I stooped to pick it up, and—Heaven is my witness that I am writing only the bare truth—before I had raised myself there was a sound of metal hinges creaking, and I distinctly saw the lid shifting upwards. I may have behaved like a coward, but I could not for my life stay for one moment. I was outside that dreadful building in less time than I can write—almost as quickly as I could have said—the words; and what frightens me yet more, I could not turn the key in the lock. As I sit here in my room noting these facts, I ask myself (it was not twenty minutes ago) whether that noise of creaking metal continued, and I cannot tell whether it did or not. I only know that there was something more than I have written that alarmed me, but whether it was sound or sight I am not able to remember. What is this that I have done?" Poor Mr. Wraxall! He set out on his journey to England on the next day, as he had planned, and he reached England in safety; and yet, as I gather from his changed hand and inconsequent jottings, a broken man. One of several small notebooks that have come to me with his papers gives, not a key to, but a kind of inkling of, his experiences. Much of his journey was made by canal-boat, and I find not less than six painful attempts to enumerate and describe his fellow-passengers. The entries are of this kind: "24. Pastor of village in Skåne. Usual black coat and soft black hat. "25. Commercial traveller from Stockholm going to Trollhättan. Black cloak, brown hat. "26. Man in long black cloak, broad-leafed hat, very old-fashioned." This entry is lined out, and a note added: "Perhaps identical with No. 13. Have not yet seen his face." On referring to No. 13, I find that he is a Roman priest in a cassock. The net result of the reckoning is always the same. Twenty-eight people appear in the enumeration, one being always a man in a long black cloak and broad hat, and the other a "short figure in dark cloak and hood." On the other hand, it is always noted that only twenty-six passengers appear at meals, and that the man in the cloak is perhaps absent, and the short figure is certainly absent. On reaching England, it appears that Mr. Wraxall landed at Harwich, and that he resolved at once to put himself out of the reach of some person or persons whom he never specifies, but whom he had evidently come to regard as his pursuers. Accordingly he took a vehicle—it was a closed fly—not trusting the railway, and drove across country to the village of Belchamp St. Paul. It was about nine o'clock on a moonlight August night when he neared the place. He was sitting forward, and looking out of the window at the fields and thickets—there was little else to be seen—racing past him. Suddenly he came to a cross-road. At the corner two figures were standing motionless; both were in dark cloaks; the taller one wore a hat, the shorter a hood. He had no time to see their faces, nor did they make any motion that he could discern. Yet the horse shied violently and broke into a gallop, and Mr. Wraxall sank back into his seat in something like desperation. He had seen them before. Arrived at Belchamp St. Paul, he was fortunate enough to find a decent furnished lodging, and for the next twenty-four hours he lived, comparatively speaking, in peace. His last notes were written on this day. They are too disjointed and ejaculatory to be given here in full, but the substance of them is clear enough. He is expecting a visit from his pursuers—how or when he knows not—and his constant cry is "What has he done?" and "Is there no hope?" Doctors, he knows, would call him mad, policemen would laugh at him. The parson is away. What can he do but lock his door and cry to God? People still remembered last year at Belchamp St. Paul how a strange gentleman came one evening in August years back; and how the next morning but one he was found dead, and there was an inquest; and the jury that viewed the body fainted, seven of 'em did, and none of 'em wouldn't speak to what they see, and the verdict was visitation of God; and how the people as kep' the 'ouse moved out that same week, and went away from that part. But they do not, I think, know that any glimmer of light has ever been thrown, or could be thrown, on the mystery. It so happened that last year the little house came into my hands as part of a legacy. It had stood empty since 1863, and there seemed no prospect of letting it; so I had it pulled down, and the papers of which I have given you an abstract were found in a forgotten cupboard under the window in the best bedroom.

I started walking outside again last week. I hadn’t done that since October of last year. I can’t say when I actually last felt joy doing it, certainly not since August of 2022, probably well before that. But I feel joy from it again. I can do it without intrusive thoughts and reminders of her, tainting the positives.
You once said that you lived a sheltered life, I don’t think that’s true at all. I definitely did, and wasn’t even aware of it. I can’t even say now that I had it bad, I just had some extreme eye opening experiences. Perhaps I said this to you before, perhaps in my own personal journal, but I’m simultaneously embarrassed & grateful for that. Some people want to make everything a comparison. You tell them something and they have to top you, let you know how they had it worse. My mom, who I am not criticizing because I do know her heart is in the right place, likes to remind you that it always could be worse. And that has recently began to infuriate me. I’m aware it could be worse. I’m usually not sharing something because I want something in return, I’m just sharing because I’m a person and that’s what people do. But hearing it could be worse minimizes whatever I’ve shared, like it doesn’t matter because it wasn’t bad enough. I’m not sure where the bad line is, where it becomes ok to share and not feel like you’re being silenced or being told to be grateful it wasn’t worse. Sometimes I just want to talk. I don’t want pity, I don’t want anything really besides some empathy and to feel heard. So as I type and share, I’m aware it could be worse. I’m aware in the scheme of the hardships of the world I have it easy. But that doesn’t mean that some things aren’t hard or painful or traumatic. I guess I feel the need to add this when speaking to you because I know you indeed had it worse.
Although I was well aware that the world was full of people who do things that are evil & wrong, although I was well aware of the saying wolf in sheep’s clothing, although I was aware that hurt people hurt people, I was unaware that sometimes it would be so difficult to see. I was aware that plenty of people were in abusive relationships, lived in abusive households, worked in environments where people would do anything to get ahead, I apparently was unaware that these things happened in friendships too. For no reason. Other than jealousy or pride or insecurity or never getting over personal problems from the past. That some people are so miserable inside that they get some sort of satisfaction out of hurting other people. Or at least they think they do, they really don’t. It’s this very thing that adds to keeping them miserable.
What I’m torn on is if they fully realize what they’re doing or not. If inside their confused mind they have justified their actions and see them as ok. If they’re so delusional that they see themselves as the victim in situations and the other person as wrong. As they go from situation to situation peddling their line of garbage, trying to convince others of their false narrative, if they themselves actually believe it. Deep down. If they paused and allowed themselves to really think about it. If they’re so emotionally immature the lies begin to sound real. If their narrative, that they’ve created, feels like truth to them.
She attacked so many elements of my life - my physical health, my mental health, my work, other friendships - it was like she infiltrated my life, thoughts, beliefs, and tried to rot it away with garbage. She succeeded some, but she didn’t win. It’s really her that loses when she keeps doing this with people. But sometimes I’m still really mad about her behaviors. To borrow your word, I felt subhuman. Like I didn’t feel things properly, couldn’t understand people properly, was selfish, and just unintentionally hurt people because I was such an inconsiderate unaware mess. And, in her opinion, whether someone intentionally hurts you or unintentionally hurts you it doesn’t matter, you’re still hurt. In my opinion there is a massive difference. But I felt like I couldn’t be trusted around others, that I shouldn’t really talk to people, that I needed to run things by M or B because I didn’t know how to act and didn’t want to hurt someone because I was such a harmful mess.
It’s difficult to look back on and not feel foolish. Like, why didn’t you see that? I’m aware it was the perfect storm of events. COVID, lockdown, me at the time just beginning to build a relationship with God, you - and if things had been different it wouldn’t have worked out the way it did. If I hadn’t have had those hundreds, probably thousands, of hours talking to her so much I wouldn’t have seen it. I’d possibly still be in her life, every once in a while getting attacked with something, and never fully understanding or realizing what was going on.
So I’m grateful it was quick and now it’s over.
I feel like I can trust myself again.
I am moving past the fear that someone is out to get me, or deceiving me, or has ulterior motives. Will that happen? Probably, but it’s no longer a fear with every person, new or old, that I encounter. I’ll be fooled again, I’ll live through it, I’ll choose what’s right (to the best of my abilities), and if someone is deceiving me that’s on them, not me for not figuring it out. If that’s what they want to feel proud of in life, their ability to lie and deceive, then the jokes on them.
I don’t know what she did to you. I have a bunch of theories, but I don’t really know. What I do know is that she doesn’t get to stop God’s plan. Whatever it is will come to be, and she’s more foolish than I thought if she thinks she has power over that. I know that you were a bright part of my life. I know that I frequently pray that I will get to do something good with you. That someday I will get to hear you teach, confidently, full of peace, being the funny, gentle, compassionate, insightful, inspirational man that you are.
There is a part of me that seems to be mentally preparing for an argument that hasn’t happened yet and I doubt ever will. But I find my mind preparing for the argument with someone and being able to prove how calculated, cruel, abusive, and diabolical her actions were. I’m probably having the argument with myself sometimes, like part of me is going are you sure? Do you have it wrong? But I am sure. It wasn’t one thing, it wasn’t a couple of things, it was dozens and dozens of things. There’s no way to add them all up and come to a different conclusion. And I would really like to. But the math just doesn’t math. Yet sometimes it’s still an imaginary argument. I guess because my brain can’t really comprehend how someone could be so close to me, pretending to be my friend, and in reality doing cruel things. What disturbs me most isn’t what she did to me, but to you. That someone could pretend to be a friend, pretend to want to help, and in reality be doing awful things to someone at their lowest point. That is what I cannot wrap my brain around. The wrongness of that breaks my heart into pieces. And I’m sorry.
What has occurred isn’t an argument, but other people with only partial knowledge immediately recognizing her behaviors as wrong, narcissistic, and one person said evil. I think for a reason that I don’t understand, is that I need to hear that from people, that the things I KNOW she did are wrong, because for some reason my brain can’t completely be trusted on this. Like I know, but I can’t fully compute it. Like I know, but it feels wrong to call these actions that were clearly wrong wrong. Like I’m also wrong for calling the behaviors out. And I’m not, I’d tell someone else they weren’t wrong, but there’s some missing connector in my brain, and I’m still messed up on this issue. And I don’t understand why. Like I can’t really believe she did things she did, because it’s just that wrong. I know that doesn’t make sense, but that girl genuinely messed me up, and there are some things I’m having difficulty healing from.
I can now, fortunately or unfortunately, spot it easier in others. Hearing their mouth say one thing, hearing their mouth tell you what a victim they are, but their actions showing something completely different. It’s disappointing. It’s frustrating. It’s maddening. But at least I can spot it and stay out of whatever web they’re trying to weave. I can listen and not argue. I can hear them and keep my mouth shut. I can wish them well, and mean it, but not partake in what they’re selling. I don’t need to enter their circular conversation and try to reason with them.
You’re a mystery to me. I’ve gone over it, more times than I can count, and I still only see good. I don’t see a twisted narcissist out to cause me harm. I don’t see a manipulative devil trying to mess with me. I see a hurting guy. Maybe some behaviors were wrong, but I don’t think it’s because you were some cruel person with ill intent, I think it’s more likely they were behaviors you learned, and didn’t know differently. Or because you were in such a bad place mentally you made some choices you wouldn’t normally have chosen. I see a lot of fear and darkness that probably lead choices. Or I’m wrong, and the jokes on me, and I’m a fool again.
I’m ok with that. I still don’t have regrets when it comes to you.
But the cold harsh reality is that you left. Without a word or an explanation. And what that feels like is that I didn’t matter at all. As more time passes that fact becomes more undeniable. I don’t have any understanding, so it makes it difficult to completely heal from it. Was I a stalker? Was I a fool? Was I frightening? Was I a friend? Did I matter at all? Was I just words on a screen, completely detached from the real human behind them? I really don’t know. I’d like to say I didn’t have expectations, but I guess I did because I didn’t expect this. Did I just insert myself where I wasn’t wanted & didn’t belong?
This healing is coming in stages, in waves, bringing up things that I didn’t expect and don’t really like. The only truths that I know, and this knowledge is what gives me peace, is that I know I had good intentions. I know I was actively seeking God and trying to follow. I know I did the best I could with the knowledge I had at the time. I know that I’d do it again, if it meant I was helping a hurting beautiful human. I probably do have some bitterness in my heart that I need to work on because I can say that about you, but I can’t say it about her. Even knowing that I could have planted good seeds in her life, even knowing that God loves her and she’s a hurting human, I can’t say that I’d do it again for her. Luckily I don’t get to choose. It’s done.
The hardest part is all of the unknowns. Those are what play tricks on my mind. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, so perhaps I should be grateful for it now. The fear that gets me the most (second most, I won’t vocalize in any way the biggest fear), is the fear that you think of me the same way I think of her.
Sometime last year I discovered that I had saved some of your old posts. Clearly at one point I knew that feature existed, and did it, but it was all new to me when I discovered them. Some were things I never care to read again. But one stood out to me, and it was still awful, but this part was touching (and awful). You said that you basically had one friend who talks to you. When I read this last year it was as though that sentence literally jumped off of the screen in gigantic letters at me. And I felt like you were talking about me. The thing that I so wanted to hear had been said, but I misunderstood it initially. Because why else would you have said it like that? One friend who talks to you. I mean, clearly I could be wrong, because I do hate making assumptions, but I feel like I’m right. Initially it never occurred to me that you meant me, because if you were talking about me it would have said two friends, because you would have included her too. But you didn’t. And I can only come up with up with two reasons why. One, you didn’t consider her a friend because she didn’t talk to you as much as I did, and therefore you just didn’t know her that well. Or, two, you saw who she was then, she’d shown you who she was then, and you knew she wasn’t a friend. If that’s true, kudos to you for seeing it, being aware of it, and knowing that’s not how any friend should act. I just wish you would have filled me in.
I mean, I do, and I don’t.
A whole lotta lessons and growth happened by what happened to me and because of her actions towards me. Although I most definitely didn’t enjoy the path getting to those lessons, I’ll accept and be grateful for them. It wasn’t all her, of course, there were other things adding to it. And I hope someday I get to talk to you about all of this. Although I am fine, although I am usually at peace with not having answers, they would be nice to have.
As I said, I found joy in walking outside again. I’ve found confidence in my job, workplace, and those that work with me. I’ve found security again in my friendships. I’ve held onto the ability to share things with others, even if there is shame attached to it, with the belief that it’s worth my embarrassment & discomfort if it can help someone. I’ve learned how to release my fears & anxieties & doubts to God, tell Him that He is in charge and to direct me as he wants. That applies to big things and the seemingly small choices that sometimes overwhelmed me each day. I let Him have it, and it’s easy. And peaceful. I mean, not always, but in general.
I’ve reached the point where I don’t fear running into her - which was a confusing fear to have. I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong to her, yet I’m sure she thinks I did, and the uncomfortableness of knowing that added to my not wanting to see her face again. That and the fact that her behaviors were literally diabolical and I don’t want to be near someone who behaves like that. That and she truly traumatized me and I’d like to remain clear of her, not remind her that I exist. I’m aware that I’m in control of myself and my actions and I can engage, or I can simply acknowledge and keep moving. She doesn’t get to control or dictate anymore, she no longer has that ability, I can do as I please.
I miss you. And everything about that is bizarre. I have no idea who you are today, you would be a completely new person. But it’s really painful to go from having someone be such a large part of each and every day to then being completely gone. Not knowing why, if I did something to push towards that happening, if she spoke lies that pushed towards that happening, or if it had nothing to do with me at all, and was all about you. I know the saying that what people do has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. I get it, I see it in action, but I can’t figure out how to frame it properly when it comes to her. Because my choice to remove her from my life has plenty to do with her behaviors, her behaviors were the catalyst of that action, it basically has everything to do with her. So there is a fear there that similar reasoning is there when it comes to you going. And it hurts my heart to think I did something to a hurting person. I guess that’s where I wish I could have resolve. That is where I wish I had answers (don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of other questions, and i guarantee a lot of them aren’t what you expect), but I need to hear that I didn’t add pain to someone who was already hurting. And if I did, I want the opportunity to apologize and/or explain.
I say again that the two years after you left were probably the most difficult of my life, and not for the reasons you would assume, if you’re assuming anything. The second year I was literally making a choice of committing myself somewhere for mental evaluation because I was crazy, or hoping the Christian counselor could help. She helped. I’m not crazy. There are definitely things I don’t understand, but not because I’m crazy.
So here I sit, writing a message to a guy that I don’t really know, that may or may not read it (which really, was true all along), with the hope that someday you’ll choose to be a part of my life again. Or help me sort out some incredibly confusing periods of my life. I’m going to be fine, and am fine, whether I get answers or not. I’m not consumed with the need for answers, it would just be nice. But sometimes we don’t get them, and sometimes we’re probably better off not having them. I’m not seeking answers from her, I have all of the answers I need, and none of them are good, I don’t want to hear any more.
It saddens me greatly that there are people out there who devote so much time to making the lives of others miserable. That’s what they do, and they think (I guess), that brings them joy or satisfaction. It’s such a waste of life. You can’t talk to them, or reason with them, or help them see past their delusions, and honestly, sometimes the way they behave is so frightening you don’t even want to try. Knowing that this person has a purpose on earth, that there is a need for them, that there is something good they could be doing, and instead they’re peddling lies and listening to lies. Knowing that someday they’re possibly going to wake up and see a bunch of wasted time. And hopefully be able to embrace truth and make the most of the rest of their life. Or just continue what they’re doing, even though it’s not working for them and never has. It’s sad to know that some people are so insecure and scared and broken that their actions of perceived self protection, that they do to keep from getting hurt, really is causing more hurt. Pushing people away. And if they would just be open and honest their life could change dramatically.
I don’t have expectations. I don’t have any anger. I’m just a person. I’m teachable. I’m clam. I have a decent ability to control my mouth. I’m empathetic. I don’t hold onto anger. I usually have the desire to see things from the other person’s perspective, even if I’m positive they’re wrong, to have understanding (and ideally, help them see reality). I’m seeking God each and every day, praying to be changed and molded and be more like Him each day, and I mean that prayer. Not that I want to go around exclaiming who I am, because usually when people are doing that it’s because they need to convince you because their actions are about to show the opposite. I guess in this forum it’s ok, because you can’t see my present day actions.
I don’t know anything about where your head is today. If you wonder about anything, or if you’ve moved past it all and it’s a foggy distant memory. I think a lot of the time for me it is now a foggy memory that I’m removed from. That it no longer seems like happened. Writing this is bittersweet, because at least it all seems real again, but simultaneously- ugh, it all seems real again. Since I know at the time your mind was in a place of blame, I’d like to say to you that any cruel action she did towards you wasn’t your fault. Even if you opted to tell her off, not your fault. She was a button pusher, a provoker, and when she got a reaction she had an uncanny skill of seeming innocent, of being the victim, of being the martyr, of whatever it was being all your issue and she wasn’t to blame at all. I’d wager that you, in the state of mind you were in at the time, were an army full of red flags waving at her and she didn’t want to acknowledge any of them. And ignoring them was probably extremely difficult. What should have been happening was she should have seen you, this hurting guy, as where her son was headed if she didn’t change some things. But she didn’t do that. At all. Maybe she has now, but at the time she changed absolutely nothing. I think I was probably meant to be an example of what she should have been doing, and it’s uncomfortable to say that, but I think it’s true. And she wasn’t doing that either. So, understand that if you have any bad feelings over why she acted certain ways towards you, or hold onto any blame, release it. She behaved this way with absolutely everyone - her son, her husband, her other friends, acquaintances, people she didn’t even know. It was, maybe still is, how she behaves. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t me. It isn’t them. It’s her.
My friend, and fortunately my current employee, is going to school to be a pastor. She doesn’t want to lead a church, she wants to minister in other ways. But, one of her latest assignments was to write her ministry goal in 125 words. Then 35 words. And finally, one word. I didn’t attempt the whole assignment, but I have a lot of thought to the one word portion of it because that seemed the most challenging. The word I would choose is truth. I want people to see who they truly are - that was definitely my goal in talking to you. I wanted you to see past all of those lies and see truth.
There are a lot of people wandering around who are deceived by lies different from that, delusions, but they’re affecting their lives in significant ways. Freezing them. Keeping them stuck. And I want them to see truth, and sometimes reality. I know it’s not my place to always intervene, but when it is I would like to drop seeds of truth.
My ex friend believed some grandiose things. The only thing I can equate it to is a little kid declaring something like one day I’m going to be president. When it’s a child you encourage them, give them real life things they can do to work towards that dream. With her, she didn’t want real life things to do to work towards a dream, she wanted something to be handed to her. You couldn’t reason with her, if you tried she’d speak to you in a condescending tone like you were a moron. So it was a difficult position to be in. One, realizing that this grown adult believes something ludicrous, like seriously believes it, and is basing real life large choices on this dream that will probably never come into fruition. Two, wanting them to have tangible parts of that dream in the present day, but realizing they not only refuse to work towards any of it, but if you point out that they were making choices that were making this dream world a reality they would literally stop doing those things. Because she quite literally wanted it to be handed to her. Thirdly, feeling incredible sadness that this person you love is literally wasting their life, and negatively affecting the security of their future by believing in a dream. A literal wish and dream. I think she believed she was psychic to some degree, that she knew things. She’d tell you things, like a fact. You couldn’t tell her differently. We’re all like that sometimes. But with her it was to a higher truly concerning degree because her belief in her feelings on things and situations left zero room for reality. She had no ability to consider the other person’s perspective at all. She literally refused to hear it, or consider it. Like it didn’t exist. Sometimes I believed her too, because I was too close to her, because I wasn’t looking at the entire picture just a piece of it, because I didn’t know better, because I truly believed God was telling her some of these things.
I don’t believe any of it now. And I feel foolish for ever doing so.
But I want to help people identify lies that keep them stuck. Whether it’s a “normal” as a thought telling someone that they are ugly, or if it’s a grandiose as them believing they’re going to win hundreds of millions of dollars in the lottery. Either way they’re stuck. Either way a lie is affecting them negatively. Either way a lie is controlling their life. I say they, but throw me in there too. I’ve got a whopper. I can throw some different circumstances in there that make mine seem more worthy of believing, more difficult to discover, but it was still a lie. A life controlling, all consuming, life stopping lie. I guess the difference between she and I is that I’m teachable, so when someone told me it was a lie I was willing to hear.
I’m working on writing about my last few years. You’re part of it, a beautiful part of it, but it isn’t about you. It isn’t a way to find you, or out you, or embarrass you, or cause you to feel shame. I respect you. It’s really my testimony. I’m not going to believe the lie that I can’t write something because I have horrible grammar. There are tools to correct that, people that can correct that, and really, if someone understands what I’m saying that’s the point, not receiving a grade for grammar. For a while I thought I couldn’t write it because I didn’t have your input, your side of things, your voice, your answers, your permission. Although I would very much like those things, I don’t have them. Nor do I have a way to get them (besides this). So I’m working on it. Your story definitely matters, and deserves to be told, and I hope you’re telling it. But mine is completely different. And it deserves to be told for different reasons. I hope when it’s finished you read it, you are reading here to know about it, you stumble upon it, whatever. I just hope you get there.
The fact is you’re a stranger to me now. I don’t know anything about where your mind is or where your heart is. And although I’m not closed off, I’m open, I don’t trust you. I’m open to building trust with you. It’s a weird thing though, because it would probably be very easy for me to just allow you full access again, with minimal discussion. I’m not sure what that says about me. Maybe it’s a good thing, maybe it’s foolish. I can say that with her there is zero desire for that. I have zero desire to know her at all. Not because I’m mad, but because of how she behaved. I once told her my openness towards something was a vision of a million doors closing, slamming shut, one right after the other, and that is how I feel about my openness to her. Not that I need to worry about it. Sure, she could one day have a true change of heart and become a changed person, and I hope that for her. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be part of it. I told a friend that I don’t need or seek or want an apology from her, the only good thing about hearing it would mean that she’s truly working on herself, and her heart, and getting right with God. And that’s the only reason I’d like to hear it.
As I reread this I’m unsure how it sounds. Probably like I have a lot of hurt still to recover from. I’m sure that’s true, but it isn’t an all consuming everyday dwelling on not moving forward hurt. It’s there, and it’s coming out in this because that’s the topic. I know parts of this don’t make sense, and are scattered, it’s a post, it is what it is.
It’s like there are two years of my life that are an utter mystery. They don’t make any sense, and the actions of the two other people that were a big part of some or all of that time don’t make any sense either. And there is a human out there who could shed some light on this time for me. I don’t think that’s wrong to hope for. It’s unbelievable how someone who I had so few direct conversations with has impacted my life so greatly.

I tell my brothers Get Out(Movie)
They don't see through the car
dash(Kardashian),
Look how the they clip a(Clipper) nigga, they
made Lamar crash,
Hope they would(Wood), I'm just
barking(Tree),
6’9(6ix9ine) Street Fighter, y'all just
talkin(Tall, T.Hawk)
Whoa, my life rough(Ruff), let me speak dog,
Tryna get on my wave but I don't see(Sea)
y'all,
see, saw, have a seat like a seesaw,
Niggas salty like sea salt, whoa,
We ain't planned for parenthood but Planned
Parenthood sell the placentas,
They ain't send a cent, fillet innocents since
Brenda Baby,
You should be shot wit the vaccination,
Can't hold still, whip us for ADD, them
lacerations,
Lostris, those wit the pink skin, they wash us,
Let that sink in; blackmail, blackball,
White rock killed us, crackball,
God is good, the plan still trillin us,
Three niggas with choppers, Klan still killin us,
I ain't forgot you was killin those who could
read,
They let us read, first book was the Bible,
God was the biggest lie,
Skin of bronze, hair of wool, man who is this
guy on the cross, dying(Dyeing)wit straight
hair?
Man this look like the guy who work at the
State Fair,
Five hundred years prior it wasn't no letter J
there,
Allegory: ministry(Men is tree),
Think about it: men is trees(Ministries), you get
rooted to the church,
Fruit picked for your misery,
Do the misses read?
Timothy, this a seed,
They say if a man in your presents girl you
don't get to speak,
You don't get to teach,
Y'all should past her(Pastor) and peace like the
princess,
I told you, old bread for the queens, just let me
mold you,
Take out that weave(Arachne), be natural, this shit
is so
true,
Rock a beehive(Aristaeus) honey buzz 'cause it's
so cute,
Let's have a ball, come around king fierce(Sphere),
sir cold(Circled),
Too clean for lean, it's a dirt road,
I don't fuck with the game, it's too deceivin,
How we expect to all get ahead when our
Future(Rapper) leanin(Drug)?
Activist huh? No more activists huh?
No leaders, just litres of the sprite,
We still gettin hung,
We hangout on corners, led to the coroners,
Nobody wanna be corns, that's how they
cornered us,
They left corn wit us, we got rocks and rode out
about those blocks,
Rolex, the trap spot, the whole house on
watch,
Niggas say this how they fed they kids and
now they gotta see they kids from the Feds,
It was poppin with sells, now pop(Dad, Searching)
in a cell(Jail),
From Coppin' a cell(Phone), now you get more
time for
cop in a cell(Jail),
Celebrations, shit is wack people, come to facts
people,
BET ain't even owned by black people but I feel it
man, we still advanced marks,
Didn't we just have a million man march?
What was that for? The blacks sure, wait,
How niggas still pay for the Clippers?
The owner clearly racist(Race), havin' a field day
wit' you niggas,
Cut out the Kaepernick(Cap), put in more work
than
niggas who black and shit,
He ain't blast this shit, told the NFL that he had to
quit,
He ain't gon' be a stupid star, on some Patrick shit,
Pat on the back for not being Pat Ewing,
Now you in the GOAT book,
Told the folks "look at the problems",
I wonder what God'a do,
No, this what we got'a do:
Say "fuck all schools", say "fuck all jobs", say
"fuck all shows, fuck y'all cars",
Say "fuck y'all clothes, fuck y'all ways, fuck y'all
goals,
I don't give a fuck where the fuck y'all go",
Somebody tell me where the fuck y'all from,
I gotta show 'em how the son(Sun) too hot for you,
Somebody tell me how the Sun too hot for you?
I have come to Hoffa(syndrome, Jimmy Hoffa) you,
Hasselhoff: I hope your
bae watchin(Baywatch)
Hitler: see they(Day) droppin jews(Jewels),
No lifeguards inside this pool, niggas can't swim,
Cry then, you oughta(Water) got the message,
Poseidon,
Nordics, I ignore it,
Prometheus, please,
I go at you(Atchu) enemies, sneeze,
Proud Israelite, we got the keys,
Tell 'em it's fall season, they better leave(Leaf),
Family trees raked up, the stake's(Steak’s) tough ,
hard meeting’s(Meat)
God greetin's, the Lord eat anything except the Lord easy,
GMO do us greezy(Greasy), this facade,
Forbidden fruits, hidden agendas,
The poison drunk, hid in a gender(Hidden
agenda),
Baby switch, chromosome splitting a
gender(Agenda)
I'm just being gentle, nuts, genitals,
Clean flow(Floor), janitor, backpackin', Jansport,
in the end(Indian) what did they take the land for?
Man resort, should man resort to violence?
We should be quiet and hit these niggas wit' all the
silencers,
21 Savage,
Three people in the court, I went twenty one on
the average,
Top shot, game over(Red Rover),
I'm different dog, this ain't the same Rover(Dog,
Car),
I'm being petty, dang Hova,
Bars for nights, hangover(Movie),
Plain(Plane) and simple, we at the hangar(Hanger)
jack,
Hang up my jacket, y’all been playin' a simp
oh(Simple, Simpsons)
Never sip Olde English, was not ready,
Dark Orange had big gut feelings like pot bellies,
I carried the Uz I(Uziel, Lil Uzi, Hebrew) rock
steady,
This monster is nowhere cool, I'm not
Telly(Sesame street, Hotel),
Hoe tell(Hotel) me, they holla Day in(Holiday Inn)
illuminati,
You right, I'm enlightened,
Roman Catholics who out fightin',
I want smoke wit' the Pope for the Pizzagate,
Happy Birthday, get a piece a cake.

Hey guys. Sorry this is so long, just felt like I needed to tell you guys my full situation. So I've been attending this Methodist Church almost every Sunday for about a year now. The only reason I started going was because it was in walking distance from my house and I didn't have a car at the time (I'm 17) and because I really didn't know that much about the difference denominations of Christianity. (I decided on Catholicism) Anyways, the church is fine I guess. My problems with it is that it's kinda corny, like playing a cheesy guitar song on the alter while everyone claps they're hands and talking about how Jesus is your best buddy kinda corny. Nothing wrong with it, just not really my type of worship. Also it is very... Well, woke lol and also like I said, I'm a Catholic so I probably should not be attending a non Catholic Church on Sunday anyways. Now that I have a car and can drive to a Catholic church, I really don't see much of a reason to be going anymore. Only problem is, the first few days I started going, they kinda pressured me into filling out this connect card, making me put my name, phone number, and even my address on it. Kinda weird and I didn't really want to, but they seemed insistent that I filled out the whole thing. They've sent me a few letters in the mail, kinda just "we've loved having you in our congregation!" Kinda letters, so I assume that's all they really needed the address for. Anyways, now that I've started going to a Catholic church occasionally on Sundays, they've started noticing my absence, so I told them I started going to a Catholic church sometimes. They seemed kinda passive aggressive about me going but the pastor didn't really seem to care too much. So how should I break the news that I really don't wanna go anymore. The pastor has texted me before so I might just send him a message saying I kinda just don't wanna go anymore. I'm sure he will be understanding, it might be kinda awkward though. What do you guys think?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/ap29/lutfur-rahman-tower-hamlets-mayor-verdict-undue-spiritual-influence
A few days ago, there was an uproar in some of the Labour subs because a group of Muslims sent a list of demands to Starmer. The one which gained the most hate was the 18th demand asking for "Undue spiritual influence" to be removed from the statute.
A bit of history from Giles Fraser:

“The Irish hate our order, our civilization, our enterprising industry, our pure religion,” wrote then prime minister Benjamin Disraeli. “This wild, reckless, indolent, uncertain and superstitious race have no sympathy with the English character. Their ideal of human felicity is an alternation of clannish broils and coarse idolatry. Their history describes an unbroken circle of bigotry and blood.” The priest and historian Charles Kingsley wrote in a letter to his wife, “I am haunted by the human chimpanzees I saw [in Ireland]”.

This law was devised to prevent Irish Catholics from voting. It has only been used against Catholics and once against Muslims in Tower Hamlets.
Now, personally, I think the Tower Hamlets case had the correct outcome - it had been turned into a rotten borough. But if the CPS needs to dredge up a racist law from the 1800's that hadn't been used in 100 years, maybe the law needs updating. Or if we're fine with the law as it is, can we have it applied equally?
I find it interesting that Reverend Ian Paisley, the former head of the DUP, was never found to be in breach of this law. When Lammy called himself a "good Christian boy" this week, wasn't that in breach? The implication that his religious upbringing means that fellow Christians should vote for him or their souls will perish? He doesn't need to even mention hell or God's punishment for it to be in breach of the law. When Justin Welby speaks up for refugees during his Easter sermon, isn't that breaking the law?

Justin Welby told the congregation at Canterbury Cathedral that "subcontracting out our responsibilities" goes against Christian values.

For context:

In 1892, the bishop of Meath, Dr Nulty, wrote a colourful letter to his congregations, urging them not to vote for “Parnellism” (despite the fact that Charles Stewart Parnell had died the year before). It “saps the very foundations of the Catholic faith” the bishop said. And, as a result of his intervention, the general election result for Meath was set aside on the grounds of “undue spiritual influence”. Reading the bishop’s pastoral letter, it is worth noting that he did not threaten hellfire or damnation. He simply told his congregations that, in his opinion, a vote for Parnellism was incompatible with being a good Roman Catholic.

Parnell was revealed to have had a longstanding adulterous relationship - this is the moral objection that Nulty had.
If imams are not allowed a voice in British politics, why are the Board of Deputies given a voice (though not when they criticised the Tories)? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43540795
Fraser raises a final interesting point. Physical and spiritual injury is banned by the law. You can't physically bar someone's path to vote or threaten them with violence or eternal damnation for voting one way or another. But you can threaten them with hypothetical job losses. Vote Labour and businesses will leave. Should the CBI not also be prevented from lobbying or speaking in favour of parties?

This is a notice for any current or prospective members of the club known as Christian Students on Campus at UT in Austin. This club is associated with a church known as The Church in Austin, which itself is associated with a denomination known as The Lord’s Recovery (a.k.a. “The Local Churches”).
You can see my own personal testimony of Christian Students on Campus in this post.
Every now and again, people will give testimony against this denomination and the clubs affiliated with them. Oftentimes, members of these churches who operate in these clubs are quick to bring up an article published by The Christian Research Institute (CRI) in order to defend themselves. I believe it is important to be aware of this article and the context surrounding it.
After decades of strife and controversy regarding the legitimacy of their theology as well as abuses that occurred in their churches, leaders of The Lord’s Recovery (a.k.a. “The Local Churches”) gained the public support of The Christian Research Institute.
Decades prior, former president of CRI Walter Martin publicly denounced the teachings and practices of Witness Lee and The Local Churches (you can hear one of his speakings on the matter here). Despite objections from the leaders of The Lord’s Recovery, Walter Martin continued to warn fellow believers to take extreme caution with Witness Lee and The Local Churches. Walter Martin never recanted. Three others who worked on this original critique were E. Calvin Beisner, his sister Gretchen Passantino, and her husband Robert Passantino.
Decades after Walter Martin’s passing, the CRI, under the leadership of Martin’s successor Hank Hanegraaff, published an article titled ”We Were Wrong” in which they claimed to have conducted years of research and repented of their former analyses of The Local Churches, recanting earlier statements published against Witness Lee and his denomination. It is important to note that the article makes a brief reference to sins, abuses, and turmoils from the 1980s that former Local Church elder John Ingalls addresses in his book, ”Speaking the Truth in Love.” Coincidentally, the article did not address these matters when concluding whether or not this was a sound church to join.
In response to this article, Norman Geisler and Ron Rhodes, two well-known and well-studied theologians, published a response (2009) to the “We Were Wrong” article, addressing several theological and practical points of concern. In it they question the validity of some of Lee’s teachings, citing what they believe to be plain errors as well as notable inconsistencies in Local Church theology.
Further still, former member Jane Carole Anderson, who had been in The Lord’s Recovery for at least 20 years, published an open letter (2010) addressing the CRI article as well as public statements by leaders of The Lord’s Recovery. In it she cites the lack of thorough exposition done by the Christian Research Institute and their failure to address the serious systemic issues and abuses that were prevalent in both teaching and practice within The Lord’s Recovery. One notable item she makes reference to is the ”one publication mandate” of The Local Churches in which all affiliated churches are required to abide by the teachings of one man named Witness Lee which are published by a company he founded known as Living Stream Ministry.
Jane Carol Anderson also received the support of James K. Walker, president of Watchman Fellowship, an apologetics and counter-cult ministry. He sent a letter to the other 73 signatories of an “open letter” in which several theologians, biblical scholars, and pastors openly critiqued Witness Lee’s teachings and called on his successors to review and correct their doctrinal errors.
In his letter to the other signatories, James K. Walker notes that two of the original researchers who critiqued the Local Churches were in sharp disagreement regarding this sudden turnabout and praise of Witness Lee’s denomination. While Gretchen Passantino now supported the Local Churches, her brother Calvin Beisner strongly disagreed with her reassessment.
It is also important to note that around the same time that CRI’s “We Were Wrong” article was published to support The Lord’s Recovery, they received a generous donation of $625K from an organization called The Morningside Foundation. This organization is run by brothers Ronnie and Gerald Chan. Ronnie Chan and his relative, Minoru Chen, are both prominent leaders in The Lord’s Recovery.
I will include here the same disclaimer as I did in my personal testimony:
I tell you these things not to target the college students themselves, for most, if not all, of them are genuine in their faith, full of the hope and love that often abides in the hearts of young men and women who seek Christ and Christian fellowship. Yet if anyone wishes to associate with this campus ministry, it would be good for them to be aware of who this group is affiliated with since they often do not feel the need to disclose such things to new members and even some veteran members. Those who are looking to join any Christian group on a college campus have a right to make an informed decision regarding who they give their time and efforts to.

Megapost: A list of statements, press releases, and other sources reporting and expressing concern and criticism about Israel's war in Gaza and related aspects of the war. (Part 3)

Notes: This is a work that is currently in progress; please check back for updates. Titles have been edited to provide details.
Part 1 is here: https://www.reddit.com/Social_Democracy/comments/1clx1uc/megapost_a_list_of_statements_press_releases_and/
Part 2 is here: https://www.reddit.com/Social_Democracy/comments/1cmjhpk/megapost_a_list_of_statements_press_releases_and/
Part 4 is here: https://www.reddit.com/Social_Democracy/comments/1crvrde/megapost_a_list_of_statements_press_releases_and/
Ayanna Pressley, Interfaith Coalition Hold Vigil for Lives Lost in Gaza and Israel, Renew Calls for Ceasefire ["Joining Rep. Pressley at the vigil was Rev. Carrie Ballenger, University Lutheran and Lutheran Chaplain at Harvard; Rabbi Rebecca Hornstein, Boston Workers Circle Executive Director; Imam Ahmad Barry of the Islamic Institute of Boston; Reverend Darrell Hamilton of the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain; Hadar Ahuvia, Rabbinical Student at Hebrew College; Rev. Willie Bodrick, II of the Twelfth Baptist Church; Rabbi Becky Silverstein; Rev. Otto Concannon of First Parish Malden; Rev. Elizabeth Carrier-Ladd, First Parish Dorchester; and hundreds of faith leaders and community members from across Greater Boston."] (January 25, 2024): https://pressley.house.gov/2024/01/25/pressley-interfaith-coalition-hold-vigil-for-lives-lost-in-gaza-and-israel-renew-calls-for-ceasefire/
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EuroMed Rights): A conditional ceasefire is not sufficient – The EU must call for an unconditional, immediate and permanent ceasefire (January 25, 2024): https://euromedrights.org/publication/a-conditional-ceasefire-is-not-sufficient-the-eu-must-call-for-an-unconditional-immediate-and-permanent-ceasefire/
Communications Workers of America Executive Board Statement on the War in Gaza (January 26, 2024): https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/communications-workers-america-executive-board-statement-war-gaza
Bernie Sanders: The US must act to end the Gaza disaster (January 27, 2024): https://www.sanders.senate.gov/op-eds/the-us-must-act-to-end-the-gaza-disaste
Black Pastors Pressure Biden to Call for a Cease-Fire in Gaza: Black congregants’ dismay at President Biden’s posture on the war could imperil his re-election bid. (January 28, 2024): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/28/us/politics/black-pastors-biden-gaza-israel.html
Right-wing Israeli ministers join thousands at event calling for the resettlement of Gaza: Several ministers within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government were among conference attendees, with two delivering keynote speeches. (January 28, 2024): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/right-wing-israeli-ministers-join-thousands-event-calling-countrys-res-rcna135863
Israel and Russia Have No Place in the 2024 Paris Olympics: The International Olympic Committee has declined to curtail Israel’s involvement in the 2024 games and has placed half-hearted limits on Russia. The IOC claims it opposes the politicization of sport — but the Olympics are a historically political institution. (January 29, 2024): https://jacobin.com/2024/01/israel-russia-war-invastion-olympics
Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory: “Gaza is a massive human rights crisis and a humanitarian disaster” (January 30, 2024): https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2024/01/gaza-massive-human-rights-crisis-and-humanitarian-disaster
Texas AFL-CIO becomes first state labor federation to call for ceasefire in Gaza (January 30, 2024): https://www.tpr.org/government-politics/2024-01-30/texas-afl-cio-becomes-first-state-labor-federation-to-call-for-ceasefire-in-gaza
Former U.S. Representative Andy Levin: Military action won’t solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s time for diplomacy. (February 1, 2024): https://www.stripes.com/opinion/2024-02-01/military-diplomacy-israel-palestinian-conflict-12863912.html
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and Anglican Church of Canada: Church leaders urge Canadian government to support ICJ ruling (February 2, 2024): https://www.anglicanlutheran.ca/statements/church-leaders-urge-canadian-government-to-support-icj-ruling/
US city councils increasingly call for Israel-Gaza ceasefire, analysis shows (February 2, 2024): https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-city-councils-increasingly-call-israel-gaza-ceasefire-analysis-shows-2024-01-31/
Sister Nabila's appeal from Gaza: ‘We want peace, respect for human rights’ (February 3, 2024): https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2024-02/sister-nabila-gaza-holy-family-parish-appeal-peace.html
CNN staff say network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to ‘journalistic malpractice’: Insiders say pressure from the top results in credulous reporting of Israeli claims and silencing of Palestinian perspectives (February 4, 2024): https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/04/cnn-staff-pro-israel-bias
Young Taiwanese go against the tide to amplify Palestinian voices (February 4, 2024): https://www.arabnews.com/node/2453726/world
Bosnian genocide researcher warns Israel repeating ‘same patterns’ in Gaza war: ‘We are seeing a genocide unfold before our very eyes,’ says genocide researcher and war survivor Arnesa Buljusmic-Kustura (February 6, 2023): https://www.aa.com.ten/europe/bosnian-genocide-researcher-warns-israel-repeating-same-patterns-in-gaza-wa3129741
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO): Statement on the Situation in Israel and Gaza (February 8, 2024): https://aflcio.org/press/releases/afl-cio-statement-situation-israel-and-gaza
Green Left: Rojava revolutionary leader Salih Muslim warns escalation could lead to World War III [Salih Muslim "declared his support for the Palestinian people and condemned the genocide they were being subjected to in Gaza by Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu's regime."] (February 8, 2023): https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/rojava-revolutionary-leader-warns-escalation-could-lead-world-war-iii
Human Rights Watch: How to End America’s Hypocrisy on Gaza: The Biden Administration Must Assess Israel’s Conduct—and Hold It to Account (February 8, 2024): https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/08/how-end-americas-hypocrisy-gaza
Carter Center Calls on Israel to Halt its Plan to Force 1.3 Million Palestinians Out of Rafah (February 9, 2024): https://www.cartercenter.org/news/p2024/israel-020924.html
International Rescue Committee: The collapse of Gaza’s health system (February 9, 2024; Last updated: May 6, 2024): https://www.rescue.org/article/collapse-gazas-health-system
J Street’s Pro-War Stance Prompts Staff Departures (February 9, 2024): https://jewishcurrents.org/j-streets-pro-war-stance-prompts-staff-departures
Bishop William Barber on the “Moral Case for a Ceasefire” in Gaza (February 12, 2024): https://www.democracynow.org/2024/2/12/rev_william_barber_gaza
CHURCHES FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE (CMEP) EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR JOINS 22 CHURCH-BASED DENOMINATIONAL LEADERS IN A LETTER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN [Signed by: Joyce Ajlouny, General Secretary, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC); Rev. Eddy Alemán, General Secretary, Reformed Church in America; Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, Ecumenical Director and Diocesan Legate Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern); The Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt, President, Unitarian Universalist Association; Rev. Bronwen Boswell, Acting Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A); Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon, Executive Director, Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP); Rev. Emmett L. Dunn, Executive Secretary-TreasureCEO, Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention; Ann Graber Hershberger, Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee U.S.; John Hill, Interim General Secretary, The United Methodist Church - General Board of Church and Society; Sr. Teresa Hougnon, M.M., President, Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic; Rev. Dr. Gina Jacobs-Strain, General Secretary, American Baptist Churches USA; Bridget Moix, General Secretary, Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL); Rev. Teresa Hord Owens, General Minister and President, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada; The Rev. Dr. David Peoples, President, Progressive National Baptist Convention Inc.; Elvira Ramirez, Interim Executive Director, Maryknoll Lay Missioners; Richard Santos, President and CEO, Church World Service (CWS); Andrea Smith, Founder and Board Member, Evangelicals4Justice (E4J); Rev. David Steele, General Secretary, Church of the Brethren; Nikki Toyama-Szeto, Executive Director, Christians for Social Action (CSA); Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ (UCC); Stephen M. Veazey, President, Community of Christ; Archpriest Thomas Zain, Vicar-General, Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America; Reverend Elijah R. Zehyoue, Ph.D., Co-Director, Alliance of Baptists] (February 13, 2024): https://cmep.salsalabs.org/pr-feb152024
Senator Peter Welch: I cannot, in good conscience, support sending billions of additional American taxpayer dollars for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s military campaign in Gaza (February 13, 2024): https://www.welch.senate.gov/welch-i-cannot-in-good-conscience-support-sending-billions-of-additional-american-taxpayer-dollars-for-prime-minister-netanyahus-military-campaign-in-gaza/
Bishops of the Church in Wales support call for Gaza ceasefire and release of hostages (February 14, 2024): https://www.churchinwales.org.uk/en/news-and-events/bishops-endorse-call-for-gaza-ceasefire-and-release-of-hostages/
‘Lead or Lose!’ Young People Arrested at Biden’s Campaign Headquarters Call for Climate Action and a Ceasefire: The youth-led Sunrise Movement warns Biden that he’ll lose the votes of the young people he needs to win the presidency without decisive action on global warming and Gaza. (February 14, 2024): https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14022024/young-people-arrested-at-biden-campaign-headquarters-call-for-climate-action-and-ceasefire/
The Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Calls for Immediate Withdrawal of Financial Support from Israel (February 14, 2024): https://mailchi.mp/6640b1d7ce56/council-of-bishops-calls-for-immediate-withdrawal-of-financial-support-from-israel
Unitarian Universalist Association: UUA Condemns Violence Against Gaza, Urges Immediate and Total Ceasefire (February 14, 2024): https://www.uua.org/pressroom/press-releases/uua-condemns-violence-urges-ceasefire
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and Anglican Church of Canada: Call for a day of prayer and fasting for Israel/Gaza and Ukraine (February 16, 2024): https://www.anglicanlutheran.ca/statements/call-for-a-day-of-prayer-and-fasting-for-israel-gaza-and-ukraine/
Mandate Trade Union donates €5,000 to UNRWA (February 16, 2024): https://mandate.ie/2024/02/mandate-donate-e5000-to-unrwa/
New national labor network formed to “end the death and devastation” in the Israel-Hamas war. National Labor Network for Ceasefire aims to further expand unprecedented ceasefire support. (February 16, 2024): https://www.laborforceasefire.org/new-national-labor-network-formed-to-end-the-death-and-devastation-in-the-israel-hamas-wa
Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association: A letter from the UUMA Board of Trustees (February 19, 2024): https://uuma.org/latest-news/a-letter-from-the-uuma-board-of-trustees/
Open Letter: Humanity & Inclusion and 61 other non-governmental organisations urge MPs to support the motion for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza [Signed by: Action Against Hunger; Action For Humanity; ActionAid UK; Age International; Amnesty International UK; Amos Trust; Bond; Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu); CAFOD; CARE International UK; Christian Aid; Climate Action Network UK (CAN-UK); Convivencia Alliance; Development Initiatives; Elrha; Embrace the Middle East; European Centre for the Responsibility to Protect; Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS); Greenpeace UK; Humanity & Inclusion UK; Inminds Human Rights Group; International Alert; International Health Partners (IHP); International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF); International Rescue Committee UK; Islamic Relief UK; Jewish Network for Palestine; Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights; Mercy Corps; Mines Advisory Group (MAG); Minority Rights Group; Muslim Aid; Muslim Community Helpline; Muslim Hands; Na’amod; Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC); Omega Research Foundation; Oxfam GB; Peace Direct; Peacemaker Trust; Penny Appeal; Plan International UK; Protection Approaches; Quakers in Britain; Resistance Kitchen; Sabeel-Kairos UK; Saferworld; Save the Children UK; Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF); Scotland’s International Development Alliance; Stamp Out Poverty; Tearfund; Trócaire; The UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK); UK-Palestine Mental Health Network; United Nations Association - UK (UNA-UK); War Child; War on Want; Welfare Association; Womankind Worldwide; Women for Women International; Women’s Platform] (February 20, 2024): https://www.humanity-inclusion.org.uk/en/open-letter-hi-and-61-other-ngos-urge-mps-to-support-the-motion-for-an-immediate-and-permanent-ceasefire-in-Gaza
Presbyterian Church USA: Calling for a stop to the destruction of Gaza (February 20, 2024): https://www.pcusa.org/news/2024/2/20/calling-for-a-stop-to-the-destruction-of-gaza/
Stand Against Genocide and Imperialism, from Palestine to Ukraine: Statement of the Ukraine Solidarity Network on the Second Anniversary of Russia’s Full-scale Invasion of Ukraine (February 20, 2024): https://newpol.org/stand-against-genocide-and-imperialism-from-palestine-to-ukraine/
National Priorities Project: United We Dream and Allies Demand Permanent Ceasefire and Immigrant Protections (February 21, 2024): https://www.nationalpriorities.org/blog/2024/02/21/united-we-dream-and-allies-demand-permanent-ceasefire-and-immigrant-protections/
The Animation Guild / IATSE Local 839: In the struggle for human rights and the protection of innocent lives, The Animation Guild stands for justice across the globe, and officially calls for a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. (February 21, 2024): https://twitter.com/animationguild/status/1760448111611097419
‘We will not be complicit in this’: Hill staffers challenge their bosses on Gaza (February 21, 2024): https://rollcall.com/2024/02/21/we-will-not-be-complicit-in-this-hill-staffers-challenge-their-bosses-on-gaza/
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference's Office for Social Justice: End the Violence in Gaza (February 23, 2024): https://socialjustice.catholic.org.au/2024/02/23/end-the-violence-in-gaza/
Beto O’Rourke supports uncommitted campaign in Michigan’s Tuesday presidential primary (February 24, 2024): https://michiganadvance.com/2024/02/24/beto-orourke-supports-uncommitted-campaign-in-michigans-tuesday-presidential-primary/
Hindus for Human Rights: Indians For Palestine: A Call to Action for Peace (February 26, 2024): https://www.hindusforhumanrights.org/en/blog/indians-for-palestine-a-public-meeting-on-the-icj-ruling-for-palestine
‘Stop the massacre’: Hong Kong activists call for ceasefires in Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Hamas wars: Demonstrators read out a statement calling for Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine, and for Israel to order a ceasefire and end its blockade of Gaza. (February 26, 2024): https://hongkongfp.com/2024/02/26/stop-the-massacre-hong-kong-activists-call-for-ceasefires-in-russia-ukraine-israel-hamas-wars/
Waiting for ‘pro-life’ legislators in Kansas to call for a ceasefire in Gaza (February 26, 2024): https://kansasreflector.com/2024/02/26/waiting-for-pro-life-legislators-in-kansas-to-call-for-a-ceasefire-in-gaza/
67 Vermont lawmakers sign letter calling for Gaza cease-fire (February 27, 2024): https://www.vermontpublic.org/local-news/2024-02-27/65-vermont-lawmakers-sign-letter-calling-for-gaza-cease-fire & https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/05/b8/3d1901af417499640d96288a716a/final-draft-of-letter.pdf
Liberal Jews for Justice in Israel/Palestine: As British Jews, we call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza (February 27, 2024): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/27/as-british-jews-we-call-for-an-immediate-ceasefire-in-gaza
Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&Ds): Palestinian lives matter! We call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza (February 27, 2024): https://www.socialistsanddemocrats.eu/newsroom/sds-palestinian-lives-matter-we-call-immediate-and-unconditional-ceasefire-gaza
IBEW Local 48: Resolution Against the War in Gaza (February 28, 2024): https://www.ibew48.com/sites/default/files/files/gaza_resolution.pdf
It is time for US Catholics to take significant risks for Gaza (February 29, 2024): https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/guest-voices/it-time-us-catholics-take-significant-risks-gaza
Japanese student urges Gaza cease-fire as U.S. universities quiet dissent (February 29, 2024): https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/02/0db05a4f79ab-japan-student-urges-gaza-ceasefire-as-us-universities-quiet-dissent.html
Malala Yousafzai: "It's heartbreaking that this school — a place for children in Gaza to learn and dream — is now home to thousands of people fleeing Israel's attacks. Every Palestinian child deserves to live in peace and be back in their schools as students. We cannot wait another day for a ceasefire." (February 29, 2024): https://twitter.com/Malala/status/1763265614985003421
Senator Jeff Merkley: U.S. “Complicit in Starvation and Humanitarian Catastrophe” in Gaza (February 29, 2024): https://www.democracynow.org/2024/2/29/jeff_merkley_gaza_ceasefire
Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights Calls for Immediate Ceasefire to Safeguard Children in Gaza (February 29, 2024): https://www.theyoungcenter.org/stories/2024/2/29/young-center-for-immigrant-childrens-rights-calls-for-immediate-ceasefire-to-safeguard-children-in-gaza
A Statement from Jewish Americans Opposing AIPAC’s Intervention in Democratic Party Politics (March 2024): https://usjewsopposingaipac.org
European Trade Union Confederation: Grave and worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza calls for more urgent EU response (March 2, 2024): https://www.etuc.org/en/node/24119
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Conference of Bishops calls for permanent bilateral cease-fire in Gaza (March 3, 2024): https://www.elca.org/News-and-Events/8217
Israel/Palestine Conflict: Over 100 Americans in Taiwan Send Letter to American Institute in Taiwan: Urgent Appeal for Ceasefire and End to Occupation in Palestine (May 3, 2024): https://newbloommag.net/2024/05/03/ait-gaza-lette
Die Linke (The Left party) MP Nicole Gohlke: Germany Should Be Supporting a Cease-Fire, Not Israel’s War (March 4, 2024): https://jacobin.com/2024/03/germany-die-linke-cease-fire-gaza
Some Black and Latino voters to back Democratic candidates who want a permanent cease-fire in Gaza: They say their solidarity with Palestinians reflects the struggles they experience every day. (March 4, 2023): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/black-latino-voters-back-democratic-candidates-want-permanent-cease-fi-rcna141241
Brazilian Trade Union Confederation (Central Única dos Trabalhadores; CUT) demands an end to Brazil's military cooperation with Israel (March 5, 2024): https://www.workersinpalestine.org/news/brazilian-trade-union-confederation-demands
Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference: ‘Let us all say: enough … Stop the War!’ (March 5, 2024): https://www.catholicbishops.ie/2024/03/05/let-us-all-say-enough-stop-the-war-irish-bishops/
Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem: Gaza ceasefire more urgent than ever (March 5, 2024): https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2024-03/patriarch-pizzaballa-gaza-ceasefire-christians-church-peace.html
PREPARED REMARKS: Senator Bernie Sanders Calls Out the Absurdity and Hypocrisy of Continued U.S. Support for Netanyahu’s Horrific War (March 6, 2024): https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/prepared-remarks-bernie-sanders-calls-out-the-absurdity-and-hypocrisy-of-continued-u-s-support-for-netanyahus-horrific-wa
‘We can no longer be silent’: New York’s Latino faith leaders call for cease-fire in Gaza (March 6, 2024): https://religionnews.com/2024/03/06/we-can-no-longer-be-silent-new-yorks-latino-faith-leaders-call-for-cease-fire-in-gaza/
Democratic former senator Patrick Leahy warns US is violating aid conditions law known as the Leahy Law by sending money to Israel (March 7, 2024): https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/patrick-leahy-israel-gaza-aid-b2509035.html
Protesters outside American Institute in Taiwan say US aiding genocide in Gaza (March 7, 2024): https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/5109362
Artists Call for Ceasefire Now [Including: Bryan Adams; Ben Affleck; Eric André; Christine Baranski; Jon Batiste; Cate Blanchett; Billy Bragg; Priyanka Chopra; Bradley Cooper; Brian Cox; David Cross; Alfonso Cuarón; John Cusack; Rosario Dawson; Diplo; Drake; Brian Eno; Francesca Fiorentini; Judah Friedlander; Liz Garbus; Andrew Garfield; Richard Gere; Lily Gladstone; Selena Gomez; Amanda Gorman; Tom Hardy; Simon Helberg; Oscar Isaac; Tony Kushner; Padma Lakshmi; Cindi Leive; Simu Liu; Jennifer Lopez; Macklemore; Zayn Malik; Miriam Margolyes; Ewan McGregor; Adam McKay; Alyssa Milano; Hasan Minhaj; Michael Moore; Viggo Mortensen; Ebon Moss-Bachrach; Cynthia Nixon; Frank Ocean; Rosie O'Donnell; Sandra Oh; David Oyelowo; Mandy Patinkin; Jordan Peele; Kal Penn; Joaquin Phoenix; Boots Riley; Mark Ruffalo; Susan Sarandon; Jean Smart; Noam Shuster-Eliassi; Jon Stewart; Kristen Stewart; Jeremy Strong; Wanda Sykes; Channing Tatum; Michelle Wolf; et al.] (Updated as of March 8, 2024): https://www.artists4ceasefire.org
T'ruah, the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights: U.S. Rabbis and Cantors Call on President Biden to End War in Gaza [+450 signatures] (March 8, 2024): https://truah.org/press/north-american-rabbis-and-cantors-call-on-president-biden-to-push-for-end-of-war-in-gaza/
Middle East Studies Association Board Joint Statement with Committee on Academic Freedom regarding the ongoing genocidal violence against the Palestinian people and their cultural heritage in Gaza (March 11, 2024): https://mesana.org/advocacy/letters-from-the-board/2024/03/11/mesa-board-joint-statement-with-caf-regarding-the-ongoing-genocidal-violence-against-the-palestinian-people-and-their-cultural-heritage-in-gaza
Writers Guild of America members criticize union for silence on Gaza: Some WGA members signed on to an anonymous letter criticizing the union for its silence on Israel’s genocide in Gaza (March 11, 2024): https://prismreports.org/2024/03/11/wga-members-criticize-union-silence-gaza/
Amnesty International: NGOs sue the Danish state to stop arms exports to Israel ["The organisations involved in the lawsuit are Amnesty International Denmark, Oxfam Denmark, Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke (Action Aid Denmark) and the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq are suing the Danish National Police and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to stop Danish arms exports to Israel."] (March 12, 2024): https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/03/denmark-ngos-sue-the-danish-state-to-stop-arms-exports-to-israel/
Gaza medics tell BBC that Israeli troops beat and humiliated them after hospital raid (March 12, 2024): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68513408
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EuroMed Rights): Annihilation of education: 100 European academics sign Euro-Med Monitor petition against systematic Israeli destruction of Gaza Strip’s educational system (March 12, 2024): https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6220/Annihilation-of-education:-100-European-academics-sign-Euro-Med-Monitor-petition-against-systematic-Israeli-destruction-of-Gaza-Strip’s-educational-system
NEWS: Senators Bernie Sanders, Chris Van Hollen, Jeff Merkley, Mazie Hirono, Peter Welch, Tina Smith, Elizabeth Warren, and Ben Ray Luján Urge President Biden to Enforce U.S. Law with Netanyahu (March 12, 2024): https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-van-hollen-merkley-and-five-colleagues-urge-president-biden-to-enforce-u-s-law-with-netanyahu/
Rabbis for Palestinian Rights Counter 'Warmongering' AIPAC in DC: "We refuse to be bystanders as the Israeli government wages a genocidal campaign in our name," one rabbi said. (March 13, 2024): https://www.commondreams.org/news/rabbis-dc-lobby-aipac
United Methodist Church Council of Bishops calling for ceasefire in Gaza (March 13, 2024): https://www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/newsdetail/united-methodist-bishops-call-for-ceasefire-in-gaza-18303396
Vermont progressive Senator Peter Welch warns Biden Israel-Gaza will be election issue: ‘Young people are just horrified’ (March 14, 2024): https://www.welch.senate.gov/vermont-progressive-senator-warns-biden-israel-gaza-will-be-election-issue-young-people-are-just-horrified/
Anita Nikaj: Voices in Solidarity with Palestine from Prishtina, Kosovo (March 15, 2024): https://kosovotwopointzero.com/en/voices-in-solidarity-with-palestine-from-prishtina/
Great Irish Famine historians issue St. Patrick's Day statement on Gaza: A group of historians is urging Irish Americans to use their influence to avert a Famine in Gaza as severe as the one faced by their Irish ancestors. (March 15, 2024): https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/others/irish-american-famine-gaza
Thirteen Town Meetings in Vermont Call for Ceasefire in Gaza, No More Weapons to Israel (March 16, 2024): https://www.rakevt.org/2024/03/16/thirteen-town-meetings-call-for-ceasefire-in-gaza-no-more-weapons-to-israel/
International Labour Organization: Palestinian unemployment rate set to soar to 57 per cent during first quarter of 2024 (March 18, 2024): https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/palestinian-unemployment-rate-set-soar-57-cent-during-first-quarter-2024
Israeli Assurances to Use US Arms Legally Are Not Credible: Oxfam and Human Rights Watch provide evidence of Israel's violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza, undermining credibility of assurances for President Biden's NSM-20 arms policy (March 19, 2024): https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/03/19/israeli-assurances-use-us-arms-legally-are-not-credible
Irish National Teachers' Organisation statement on Palestine – critical action vital to prevent famine (March 20, 2024): https://www.into.ie/2024/03/20/into-statement-on-palestine-critical-action-vital-to-prevent-famine/
Right-wing media have spent months disparaging liberal and anti-Zionist Jews to undercut support for Palestinians: Trump channeled and echoed a long-running trend in conservative media when he said Jews who vote for Democrats “hate” their religion (March 20, 2024): https://www.mediamatters.org/middle-east/right-wing-media-have-spent-months-disparaging-liberal-and-anti-zionist-jews-undercut
Humanists UK: Call for ceasefire in Gaza (March 21, 2024): https://humanists.uk/2024/03/21/call-for-ceasefire-in-gaza/
Gaza Strip in maps: How life has changed (March 22, 2024): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-20415675
Association of Legal Aid Attorneys: CONGRESSIONAL SUBPOENA OVER PRO-PALESTINIAN SPEECH VIOLATES FREE SPEECH, ALLEGES ATTORNEYS' AND LEGAL WORKERS' UNION IN ITS RESPONSE (March 25, 2024): https://www.alaa.org/media-releases/congressional-subpoena-over-pro-palestinian-speech-violates-free-speech-alleges-attorneys-and-legal-workers-union-in-its-response
Franciscan Action Network: 12 Christian leaders arrested in Senate calling for ceasefire in Gaza ["The endorsing organizations include Christians for a Free Palestine; Churches for Middle East Peace; Church of the Brethren, Office of Peacebuilding and Policy; Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, U.S. Provinces; Dorothy Day Catholic Worker; Fellowship of Reconciliation; Festival Center; Franciscan Action Network; Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA); Georgetown University Medical Students for Palestine, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns; National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; National Council of Churches, USA; Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace; Pax Christi USA; Quixote Center; Sisters of Mercy of the Americas – Justice Team; Sojourners; United Church of Christ; The United Methodist Church — General Board of Church and Society; US Federation of the Sisters of St. Joseph; and the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER)."] (March 25, 2024): https://franciscanaction.org/12-christian-leaders-arrested-in-senate-calling-for-ceasefire-in-gaza/
NEWS: Bernie Sanders on State Department’s Statement that Israel Has Not Restricted Humanitarian Aid to Gaza (March 25, 2024): https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-on-state-departments-statement-that-israel-has-not-restricted-humanitarian-aid-to-gaza/
Russian actions in Ukraine to pave way for Gaza war crimes case in ICC: Lawyer leading investigation draws parallels between crises facing Ukrainians and Palestinians (March 25, 2024): https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/europe/2024/03/25/russian-actions-in-ukraine-to-pave-way-for-gaza-war-crimes-case-in-icc/
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: A/HRC/55/73: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 - Advance unedited version ["After five months of military operations, Israel has destroyed Gaza. Over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 13,000 children. Over 12,000 are presumed dead and 71,000 injured, many with life-changing mutilations. Seventy percent of residential areas have been destroyed. Eighty percent of the whole population has been forcibly displaced. Thousands of families have lost loved ones or have been wiped out. Many could not bury and mourn their relatives, forced instead to leave their bodies decomposing in homes, in the street or under the rubble. Thousands have been detained and systematically subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. The incalculable collective trauma will be experienced for generations to come. By analysing the patterns of violence and Israel’s policies in its onslaught on Gaza, this report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met. One of the key findings is that Israel's executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people."] (March 25, 2024): https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5573-report-special-rapporteur-situation-human-rights-palestinian
In New Letter, 140+ Global Christian Leaders Call for Permanent Gaza Ceasefire, Halt of Arms Sales to Israel (March 26, 2024): https://cmep.salsalabs.org/ps-mar262024letter
Over 1,000 People Join 22-Mile Interfaith Gaza Ceasefire Pilgrimage (March 26, 2024): https://oaklandvoices.us/2024/03/26/over-1000-people-join-22-mile-interfaith-gaza-ceasefire-pilgrimage/
Former State Department official Annelle Sheline: Why I’m resigning from the State Department (March 28, 2024): https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/opinions/gaza-israel-resigning-state-department-sheline/index.html
I Could Not Stay Silent: Annelle Sheline Resigns from State Dept. over U.S. Gaza Policy (March 28, 2024): https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/28/annelle_sheline
‘We cannot be silent’: A statement from the Jesuits on Gaza (March 28, 2024): https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2024/03/28/jesuits-gaza-israel-ceasefire-247605
'I kept on saying goodbye': Gaza hospital reports rise in stillbirths and neonatal deaths: Doctors in Gaza are reporting an increase in adverse pregnancy outcomes, with staff members at a Rafah hospital saying they no longer see "normal-sized babies." (April 2, 2024): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-hospital-stillbirths-neonatal-deaths-rcna145582
Rosa Luxemburg Foundation: The Unprecedented Destruction of Gaza Demands an Unprecedented Response (April 2, 2024): https://rosalux.nyc/the-unprecedented-destruction-of-gaza-demands-an-unprecedented-response/
'Unprecedented In Modern History': U.S. Aid Experts Warn Gaza Likely Already Experiencing Famine: The officials made the comments in a government cable sent within the Biden administration on Tuesday and obtained by HuffPost. (April 2, 2024): https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gaza-collapse-famine_n_660c96aae4b0328a72be47f5
A Former State Department Staffer on Why She Publicly Resigned Over Gaza: “There are people working very hard inside State to try to hold Israel accountable, but none of that will actually go into effect unless Biden wants it to,” says Annelle Sheline. (April 3, 2024): https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/04/former-state-department-official-regisns-joe-biden-gaza-israel-palestine-annelle-sheline/
The Independent: It’s time to stop: Editorial: The seven aid workers killed by an Israeli air strike have become symbolic of the lawless, reckless manner in which Benjamin Netanyahu has prosecuted this war. The moment has come to do whatever it takes to force the government of Israel to end it (April 3, 2024): https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/aid-workers-gaza-israel-killed-air-strike-b2522745.html
UK Judges’ and Lawyers’ Open Letter Concerning Gaza [1000+ signatures] (April 3, 2024): https://lawyersletter.uk
Former officials speak out against Biden’s Israel support after aid worker killings: ‘No one can change his mind’ (April 4, 2024): https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/joe-biden-israel-arms-gaza-b2523435.html
Trócaire: The people of Gaza are Starving; for Food and for Justice (April 4, 2024): https://www.trocaire.org/news/the-people-of-gaza-are-starving-for-food-and-for-justice/
Elizabeth Warren says she believes Israel’s war in Gaza will legally be considered a genocide: “If you want to do it as an application of law, I believe that they’ll find that it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do so,” Warren said of the case before the ICJ. (April 8, 2024): https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/08/israel-gaza-war-elizabeth-warren-00151120
Letter to the Editor: Don’t downplay the realities in Gaza (April 8, 2024): https://baptistnews.com/article/letter-to-the-editor-dont-downplay-the-realities-in-gaza/
DENMARK: ‘Many are eager to see tangible action to address the situation in Gaza’ ["CIVICUS speaks with Vibe Klarup, Secretary General of Amnesty International Denmark, about the joint civil society lawsuit brought against the Danish state to stop Danish arms exports to Israel."] (April 9, 2024): https://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-resources/news/interviews/6954-denmark-many-are-eager-to-see-tangible-action-to-address-the-situation-in-gaza
Labour Party of Ireland Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin: Words on Gaza must be matched with action (April 9, 2024): https://labour.ie/news/2024/04/09/words-on-gaza-must-be-matched-with-action/
Ex-Obama aides become Biden critics on Gaza (April 10, 2024): https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4583525-obama-allies-expose-dem-rift-over-bidens-israel-hamas-war-strategy/
Israeli strikes killed 7 humanitarian workers with World Central Kitchen. Right-wing media responded by attacking founder José Andrés. Conservative media figures have accused the WCK founder of “blood libel” and called him “self-aggrandizing,” a "swamp favorite,” and a “political radical” (April 10, 2024): https://www.mediamatters.org/middle-east/israeli-strikes-killed-7-humanitarian-workers-world-central-kitchen-right-wing-media
Los Angeles County Federation of Labor joins labor groups calling for cease-fire in Gaza (April 10, 2024): https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-04-10/l-a-county-fed-joins-labor-groups-calling-for-a-ceasefire
Young European Socialists (YES) calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. More than 30.000 civilians have been killed in Gaza following Israel military actions. We recall that the protection of civilian lives is a fundamental principle of international law. (April 10, 2024): https://twitter.com/YESocialists/status/1777993174654275791
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EuroMed Rights): 13,000 Palestinians reportedly missing in the Gaza Strip (April 11, 2024): https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6264/13,000-Palestinians-reportedly-missing-in-the-Gaza-Strip
Feroze Sidhwa and Mark Perlmutter: As Surgeons, We Have Never Seen Cruelty Like Israel’s Genocide in Gaza: We urge anyone who reads this to publicly oppose sending weapons to Israel as long as this onslaught continues. (April 11, 2024): https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/surgeons-cruelty-israel-gaza
Former State Department official Annelle Sheline explains resignation over US support of Israel (April 11, 2024): https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/former-state-department-official-explains-resignation-us-support/story?id=109083137
Democratic Coalition Sends Biden a Demand on Military Aid to Israel: In a letter, a dozen groups and labor unions called on the president to enforce a law that bars military support from going to any nation that restricts the delivery of humanitarian aid. (April 12, 2024): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/us/politics/letter-biden-israel-gaza.html
Meeting between Norwegian Prime Minister Støre and Spanish President Sánchez on the war in Gaza (April 12, 2024): https://www.regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/meeting-between-prime-minister-store-and-president-sanchez-on-the-war-in-gaza/id3033979/
Senator Bernie Sanders Statement on the Escalation in the Middle East (April 15, 2024): https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-statement-on-the-escalation-in-the-middle-east/
Churches Together in Britain and Ireland: Prayers and statements on violence in Israel and Gaza (April 16, 2024): https://ctbi.org.uk/prayers-and-statements-on-violence-in-israel-and-gaza/
Amos Goldberg, professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Yes, it is genocide (April 18, 2024): https://thepalestineproject.medium.com/yes-it-is-genocide-634a07ea27d4
Georgetown University Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine hold second vigil for Gazan academics killed by Israel (April 18, 2024): https://georgetownvoice.com/2024/04/18/faculty-hold-second-vigil-for-gazan-academics-killed-by-israel/
New Hampshire Jews say “Not in My Name” [67 signatures] (April 20, 2024): https://www.nhgazette.com/2024/04/20/n-h-jews-say-not-in-my-name/
Statement from U.S. Representatives Pramila Jayapal, Joaquin Castro, Nydia Velázquez, Lloyd Doggett, Ro Khanna, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Becca Balint, Greg Casar, Mark Takano, Jim McGovern, Barbara Lee, Earl Blumenauer, Judy Chu, Hank Johnson, André Carson, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Jesús “Chuy” García, Jonathan Jackson, and Jill Tokuda on the Israel Security Supplemental (April 20, 2024): https://jayapal.house.gov/2024/04/20/statement-from-jayapal-castro-velazquez-doggett-khanna-ocasio-cortez-balint-casar-takano-mcgovern-barbara-lee-blumenauer-chu-johnson-carson-watson-coleman-jesus-chuy/

IIn the final weeks of her life, Mica Miller was hopeful. Her closest friends recall a woman who was finally finding her voice – and planning a future without her allegedly abusive husband. None of them saw any indication that she was planning to end her life.
Certainly none of them had any idea her body would turn up miles away from home in a remote pond at the Lumber River State Park in North Carolina.
Yet, according to North Carolina investigators and medical examiners, that’s exactly what happened. On Monday (May 6, 2024), North Carolina medical examiner Dr. Richard Johnson officially released the cause and manner of death in connection with the high-profile alleged suicide of the beautiful pastor’s wife from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on Saturday April 27, 2024.
According to Johnson’s findings, 30-year old Mica Miller died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
The following day (Tuesday, May 7, 2024), the Robeson County, N.C. sheriff’s office officially ruled Miller’s death a suicide– and cleared her husband, pastor John-Paul “JP” Miller, as a suspect.
Those declarations shocked Mica’s friends and family – especially in light of everything she had shared with them about her separation from the embattled pastor (including the divorce papers served on him less than 48 hours before she died).
Our media outlet spoke with several close friends of Miller in an effort to gain insights into her final days, weeks and months among us …
Mica Acacia Francis says she met her husband – known as ‘PJP’ to his growing congregation – when she was just ten years old. At the time, the 25-year-old father of multiple children was married to his first wife, Alison Williams, who bore a striking resemblance to Mica.
The divorce of Alison and John Paul Miller was finalized on October 29, 2015 and he married Mica in 2017 when she was 23 years old. Mica – who was raised in the church – immediately took on the role of pastor’s wife at Solid Rock at Market Common. The couple’s smiling faces featured prominently on the church’s now-defunct website, offering a warm welcome to its new members.
According to the website, Mica became more active in the day-to-day activities of the church in 2020 – “joyfully” singing on the praise team and creating all the graphics for the church (and for her husband’s popular Sunday sermons). From the outside looking in, their marriage was perfect – but according to her friends, things were not as they appeared.
Mica’s close friends indicated the marriage began deteriorating about two years ago, but most of them were unaware of how bad things had gotten until the fall of 2023. Around this time, JP purportedly read an “apology” letter to church board members explaining that the couple had separated – and admitting that he had been exchanging text messages with the daughter of a couple who were members of the church. JP is also said to have informed the board that he and Mica had agreed they could “see other people” while they were separated – a claim more than a few of the board members questioned.
Several longtime friends of the couple who belonged to the church began feeling uncomfortable with the seemingly strange new messaging and tone of his weekly sermons. As a result, they opted to seek a new church to call home. When Mica realized her friends no longer belonged to the church, she began opening up to them.
According to multiple friends, what the young wife claimed she was experiencing at the hands of her husband was horrific. According to them, Mica was – as court documents supplied by her family attested to – a woman afraid for her life.
Mica was a devout Christian. She cherished the faith and the fellowship she found within her church. Friends say she endured years of abuse at the hands of her husband silently – afraid that if she spoke the truth to those closest to her, it would affect their relationships with God. While those who are not devout followers of Christ may struggle to understand her hesitancy, those who are say Mica was ultimately striving to protect the one thing which brought her the most peace during the times she struggled most … her faith.
When she realized she now had fellowship outside of the church in which she was raised, she knew it was time to seek the guidance of those she trusted and loved the most.
Friends say Mica told them her husband – the same husband who preached regularly about the dangers of pornographic addictions – was himself addicted to sex. They say he required her to have sex with him 3-5 times a day. At night, when she refused to comply, they claim he kept her awake by blaring loud music in her ears and throwing water on her as she drifted off to sleep – a form of torture utilized in interrogation techniques.
When Mica couldn’t meet his demands, according to her friends, he allegedly began forcing her to take testosterone shots to increase her sex drive. He also allegedly began engaging in other methods of sexual gratification – methods which dehumanized Mica. Several of these methods – which can only be described as humiliating to his reserved wife – allegedly involved animals, homeless men and sex toys.
While Mica’s decision to privately share such awful details of her marriage shocked her friends – they also said in retrospect that it made sense given how he treated her.
“I mean, when we were there, and of course we were in the inner circle and we saw a lot and everything,” said Allicia Young, a friend of Mica’s and former member of the church. “I mean the way he would talk to her in front of people. I mean, he would talk down to her and the light would just go out of her face and everything – and we didn’t know exactly how deep the abuse ran because we only saw what was in front of us.”
Mica had been preparing to leave her husband, but given the alleged abuse she had endured – and a failed previous attempt in September of 2023 – she was carefully documenting evidence for her attorney. Friends say the evidence included proof of misuse of church funds, affairs involving JP and other women and other illicit activities. Given a recently uncovered incident report filed on March 13, 2024 with the Myrtle Beach Police Department (MBPD) – which alleged the illegal transfer of funds from the church’s “Dare2Care Mission” to Miller’s personal account – it is possible she had ample ammunition.
But something happened before Mica Miller could do anything with the information she told friends she had gathered. On February 8, 2024, her husband had her admitted involuntarily to the Waccamaw Center for Mental Health. Upon her release on February 10, 2024, staff at the facility informed her that her husband had taken her purse and her car keys. When Mica returned to where she had last left her car, it was gone, she told friends.
According to Mica’s friends, JP left her at the facility with no identification, no wallet and no car.
In a police report filed a little over a week later, Mica told a responding officer that JP had “fraudulently initiated her involuntary hospitalization” – and stolen her vehicle.
She added that JP had known her since she was ten years old and “groomed” her while she worked for him prior to their marriage.
John Paul had an entirely different narrative for the officer. According to him, his wife suffered “from mental health disorders” which caused her to become reckless and spend large amounts of money. He claimed he had taken possession of the vehicle to ensure she didn’t sell it during her most recent episode. He also told the officer they were not legally separated. As the couple was still legally married and the vehicle was considered marital property, the officer found no way to establish that a criminal offense had been committed. Accordingly, no charges were filed.
Shortly thereafter, Mica moved in with a friend and her father helped her get a new car so she was able to drive herself to work. Eventually she managed to get her identification back from her estranged husband, but the problems didn’t end there.
A trail of incident reports documented an ongoing campaign of harassment and stalking — corroborating what Mica’s closest friends say they witnessed in her final months.
One of her closest friends recalled a haunting conversation with Mica in the midst of her final attempt to escape her marriage.
“My husband’s gonna try to find me,” Mica said during the late-night call, according to her friend. “He’s gonna say I killed myself – telling the whole church, every sermon, every opportunity he gets, to tell the church that I have a mental illness.”
“You know, he’s threatened me with the gun before … and he told me I will never leave him,” Mica continued, according to her friend. “He’s never gonna let me go. There’s no way he said it to me. He said there’s nowhere you can go that I can’t find you.”
At this point, her heartbroken friend choked up as she recalled their conversation …
“She said ‘I’m scared,'” the friend recalled. “She said, ‘I’m genuinely scared.'”
“I think I know too much,” Mica told her friend. “And that’s why he wants to keep me quiet. That’s why he wants to shut me up.”
The multiple police reports Mica filed in the final months of her life lend credence to her growing fear of her estranged husband – which, in addition to being discussed in our interviews with her friends, was documented in a court filing by her family members days after her death.
According to a report from WPDE TV-15 (ABC – Florence/ Myrtle Beach), on March 11, 2024 Mica got a flat tire on her Honda Accord not long after leaving Springmaid Pier just off of South Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach. As she pulled out of the parking lot, she heard a pop and noticed metal protruding from her tire. It was the second time she had found a razor blade in her tire that week. A Myrtle Beach police officer helping her change the tire told her the metal was a tire deflation device that could be purchased online.
As Mica headed to a Honda dealership to get it repaired, she stopped at a gas station – at which point friends say John Paul pulled into the pump next to her and attempted to speak with her. Mica recalled asking her husband to leave – stating she did not wish to speak with him.
While mechanics were repairing her tire, they found something even more concerning – a tracking device hidden on the vehicle. The Horry County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) responded to the dealership to file a report and while the officer was there, Mica received a call from an unknown number.
It was John Paul …
The officer filing the report told JP his wife did not want any further contact with him and that if he proceeded then warrants might be written up. The pastor acknowledged the warning – but did not appear to heed it.
Mica filed another report with police after discovering another tracking device on her car on March 26, 2024.
According to her friends, after taking all of Mica’s electronics during her involuntary commitment in February, her husband had secured the logins to all of her emails and social media accounts. On April 8, 2024, she filed an incident report. with Myrtle Beach Police alleging he had used her Facebook login to post a nude photo of her using an anonymous account – tagging her old profile which she no longer had access to.
According to Mica, the nude photo was one she had sent him six months earlier. When the responding officer reviewed the image, he concluded that since the nipple was blurred it did not meet the standard for nudity.
Since the post was anonymous, there was no way to prove JP was the one who posted the photo – although Mica affirmed he was the only person to whom she sent this specific nude photo.
On April 15, 2024, Mica discovered another tracker on her vehicle and filed yet another incident report. In response to this complaint, an officer advised her that because the couple were still married the vehicle was considered community property – and no crime had been committed.
Mica filed for legal separation the next day. As previously reported, John Paul Miller was served with these divorce papers on April 25, 2024 — just two days before Mica’s death.
Mica’s calls for help went unanswered – over and over again. On repeated occasions, police officers found no cause for charges, cited civil laws relating to marital property, or indicated there was no way to prove her husband had committed any crimes. No investigations appear to have been conducted – leaving her with no option but to file for separation.
Count on this media outlet to continue its investigation into the allegations against JP Miller – and to continue our deep dive into the circumstances which led to Mica Miller’s death.
In fact, next week I will join our Andy Fancher in retracing Mica Miler’s steps as she made her way from Myrtle Beach to the Lumber River State Park on that fateful Saturday afternoon.
Source: Jenn Wood is FITSNews’ incomparable research director. She’s also the producer of the FITSFiles and Cheer Incorporated podcasts and leading expert on all things Murdaugh/ South Carolina justice. A former private investigator with a criminal justice degree, evildoers beware, Jenn Wood is far from your average journalist! A deep dive researcher with a passion for truth and a heart for victims, this mom of two is pretty much a superhero in FITSNews country. Did we mention she’s married to a rocket scientist? (Lucky guy!) Got a story idea or a tip for Jenn? Email her at [jenn@fitsnews.com](mailto:jenn@fitsnews.com).

Thank you to u/TrueSaltnolies , they contributed a lot of details into this! I tried my best to add in what I could as well, but the original creator is on Facebook. All in all, we 3 contributed heavily. If you see any edits that need to be made, please comment them.
-February 8, 1998/1999 (unsure which year)- JP was indicted on charges: assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature. The indictment charges Miller with hitting a woman twice with his vehicle at a high rate of speed.
-April 13, 2003 - John-Paul Miller is found guilty of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and knowingly causing property damage in excess of $300.
-February 28, 2005 - John-Paul Miler is charged with domestic assault/battery and bodily harm.
-2007- Mica and her family move to Myrtle beach. At this time she is 14 and enters JP’s youth group. He then starts grooming her.
-2012 - Mica Miller is married to another man. JP officiates the wedding.
-2015 - Mica & Pastor John-Paul Miller have an affair with each other. Both spouses of Mica & JPM file for divorce.
-2015 - Pastor John-Paul Miller writes a letter to the church asking for forgiveness. According to multiple members of the church at the time, Elders told them, "You're not a good Christian if you don't have forgiveness."
2015/2016- a video of JP is taken from a neighbor where he pretends to have fallen out of his truck, pretends to cry, and says “they changed my medication I feel like I’m going crazy. I just want to meet Jesus.”
-2017 - Mica & Pastor John-Paul Miller get married.
-2021 - Pastor John-Paul Millers alleged affair with Susie Skinner begins. Both Susie and her husband are members of the church. I've been told by several sources this is when the relationship began.
-September 6, 2021 - Susie Skinner's husband is found dead in a pool. Bound by a wheelchair, he accidentally falls in and drowns.
-October 2023 - Mica Miller files for divorce.
-October 22, 2023- JP uploads his sermon to YouTube where he says he’s seeing a psychiatrist for a VERY deep depression, has been taking lithium, and has suicidal thoughts.
-October 15-27, 2023- Mica participated in a church mission in Kenya.
-December 24, 2023 - John-Paul Miller sells his house to Solid Rock Church. (Deed of 246 Cold Water Circle).
-February 2024- Mica Miller's application for divorce is dismissed.
-February 4, 2024 - Pastor John-Paul preaches a sermon on Korah and Moses and how it's wrong to rise against religious leaders.
-February 6, 2024- Mica leaves this voicemail to JP: "Hey honey. Uhh, hope I'm talking to my husband. I never should have left you. I never should have abandoned you when you were trying to work things out. I never should've put anybody else before you. I love you. At this point, I don't even know who my husband is because I don't have a paper trail. I don't have a copy of my marriage license and where it was filed and proof that I am married to who the world thinks I'm married to, who I think I'm married to. I don't even know anymore. I'm getting tax records from Mica Francis, Mica Miller, I don't even know what my last name is. I know I'm Mica Acacia, I know I'm that. My parents gave me those two names. That's on my original birth certificate. Still is today. But I don't know who I belong to under God and legally anymore, because I don't have a paper trail. And that's important because if you get put on life support, if you are mentally unable or unfit to run the church, I need to know the paper trail. Who's in charge? We got a lot of assets, a lot of money to guard. This is not our money, it's God's money. Whose money was that before God? He put it in the pocket to people, and then those people gave it to us and entrusted us with God's money, in God's house, to do as God wishes. But I don't know who steers the boat anymore, and that concerns me. I'd like a paper trail. I don't feel like that's too much to ask from the First Lady, or maybe the First Lady of Solid Rock, in case something happens to you. I love you. This isn't to harm you. I love you. Bye."
-February 8, 2024- Mica is involuntarily hospitalized in a mental facility by JP. (Note: this was after she asked for a paper trail).
-February 8, 2024- According to affidavits from Mica's family, John-Paul Miller removes Mica’s possessions from the home they shared while she was in Waccamaw Mental Health Facility. While in the facility, JP *allegedly* removed documents of abuse and fraud that Mica had been collecting from her digital file and locked her out of Facebook, iCloud, and other social media. He then makes posts pretending to be her.
-February 10, 2024 - Mica accuses JPM of stealing her car while admitted in the hospital.
-February 12, 2024- Mica withdraws the divorce filing.
-February 15, 2024- Mica’s sister, Sierra Francis, posts: “If you see any post, messages, or text from my sister, “mica miller”, it is not her. She doesn’t have access to phone, email, fb, none of it. You can see from her posts who’s actually controlling her account.”
-February 23, 2024 - Pastor John-Paul files for spousal support.
-February 23, 2024 - Pastor John-Paul leaves his number for a waitress. An adult conversation, through text, happens. JPM is seen begging for explicit photos from the woman.
-February 25, 2024 - In another sermon to his congregation Pastor John-Paul says a mentally ill person doesn't know they're sick. "You have to trust people around you. The thing that's sick is your mind and your mind is what you need to realize that you're sick."
-Febuary 29, 2024- Someone uploaded the new Dare2CareMissions website.
-March 7, 2024- Mica’s sister, Sierra Francis, posts, “Friendly reminder: My sister Mica DOES NOT have access to her phone, email, fb, OR charity account. She is not making these posts or sharing them.
-March 10, 2024 - Pastor John-Paul preaches a sermon and reveals he went through two years of messages on his wife's phone. He found that 18 people reached out saying to her, "If you ever want to talk about your husband you can talk to me and I'll keep it confidential." Visibly upset, the Pastor followed up with, "That's a demon talking..."
-March 10, 2024 - Pastor John-Paul tells his congregation that his wife was in the hospital and as soon as she got out, she left him. "She gets out and she just leaves. Just completely leaves me. Leaves everything, drains the bank account and just goes. Guess what? While you're talking bad about me out there l'm building a school in Africa for over a hundred kids to be able to be fed."
-March 10, 2024 - Pastor John-Paul says to his congregation, "One thing I'm going to preach about is gettin' rich, strong, healthy, and finding a hot wife that loves Jesus." while wearing his wedding ring.
-March 11, 2024 - Mica Miller files a police report that her tire was slashed. The possible suspects name was redacted from the report. There was also a tracking device found by East Coast Honda (Where Mica used to work)
-March 11, 2024- JP withdrew the separation filing.
-March 12, 2024 - Pastor John-Pauls request for spousal support was dismissed. There's no explanation as to why.
-March 14, 2024- Officers visited Mica’s apartment regarding report of a tracker found.
-March 17^t, 2024 - Pastor John-Paul tells a story of a Pastor whose wife left him for a member of his staff. The pastor had to hire a third party company to find her. Once he found her, divorce papers were drawn up. When the time came to sign the papers, the Pastor couldn't do it because, "Bible says divorce is wrong..." and if she wanted out she would have to leave him. According to affidavits, Mica Miller accuses her husband of tracking her.
-March 17, 2024 - In a Facebook post made by Mica's sister, Sierra Francis says, she keeps an eye on her phone, " ...for fear of my sisters safety due to others behaviors towards her." She goes on to mention the sermon from March 17th and calls out the congregation of Solid Rock Church.
-March 18, 2024 - Mica posts a video encouraging others. She says, "I'm just making sure my heart doesn't have any unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment... Just forgiveness and hope for the future... and peace."
-March 19, 2024- Mica posted her first public Facebook post/profile picture (maybe a new account, maybe not). Mica posted a video discussing the challenges she has faced over the past weeks, months, and years, mentioning the importance of keeping her circle small and thanking those who have supported her.
-March 22, 2024 - Mica posts another video suggesting she was being abused physically and mentally. She also says, "God hates divorce. But how does God feel about abuse?" She also suggests her husband forced her to take illegal drugs.
**-March 23, 2024-**In a Facebook chat, Mica tells a friend she no longer goes to Solid Rock and says she is getting divorced and it’s for the best.
-March 26, 2024- Mica called police and said she found a tracking device on her own vehicle.
-March 27, 2024 - Pastor John-Paul Miller files a police report saying he's being harassed on social media by his wife. He tells police he's, "Worried about his reputation."
-March 31, 2024- Mica was baptized at Valorous Church in Little River, SC.
**-April 5, 2024-**Mica texts a friend, “Thank you for your gentle warnings through the years regarding my relationship with JP. I know that you knew I wasn’t ready to get out but looking back your warnings were very helpful when trying to make tough life decisions. Definitely have replayed our convo’s in my head over and over throughout the years and wished there was something I could do to get out. And now I’ve done it :)”
-April 9, 2024- Mica uploads a Facebook photo with the caption, “When terrible terrible TERRIBLE things happen to you… (yall know what I’m talking about;) RPF: Resting Peace Face” after JP uploaded a nude photo of Mica to Facebook, then deleted it (Shown in the affidavits, she reports this)
-April 13, 2024- Mica’s sister, Sierra Francis, posts on Facebook saying, “Don’t listen to the false stories being told about her (Mica)”.
-April 16, 2024 - Mica files for spousal support.
-April 23rd , 2024- A hearing notice was sent out for Mica's request. A court date for -June 5th was set.
-April 25, 2024- JP Miller was served with divorce papers.
-April 26, 2024- Mica gets help from friends to pay her car taxes that were due in December.
-April 27, 2024 - Mica dies of suicide.
-TIMELINE OF APRIL 27: (According to Robeson Sheriff’s Office..)
-11:38am: Mica is on Ring camera leaving home.
-12:12pm: Mica arrives at Dick’s Pawn Shop and purchases a firearm. She tells the clerk it’s for protection.
-1:35pm: Leaves 41 Grocery and Grill in Mullin’s, SC.
-2:05pm (approx.): Arrives at Lumber River State Park, in NC.
-2:22pm: JP’s vehicle (we don’t know who was driving) is spotted on Highway 17, in SC.
-2:25pm: Mica walks the mile to the water at the state park. -2:54pm: The Robeson County E911 Communications Center receives a 911 call, supposedly from Mica.
-Between 3:30-4:00pm: Gunshot heard by a fisherman.
-4:35pm: LEO spotted a body in the water, even though the fisherman only heard a gunshot, no splash into the water. Note: The fisherman picked up Mica’s belongings and returned to the dock. He spoke with LEO and gave them the belongings he found. He never said he saw Mica in the water, either.
-April 28, 2024 - Pastor John-Paul announces to his congregation, at the end of service, that his wife was dead and it was, "self induced" He also reminds the congregation of her mental illness. April 28th - Mica's sister, Sierra Francis, posts on Facebook saying, "Don't listen to the false stories being told about her (Mica)."
-April 30, 2024 - John-Paul Miller attempts to get into Mica's apartment. He's stopped by the building manager and police are called.
-May 2, 2024 - In an interview with ABC 15, Pastor John-Paul Miller says, "She was probably the greatest wife anyone could ask for." He also, once again, points out her mental illness.
-May 2, 2024 - Affidavits are filed by the siblings of Mica Miller. According to documents, Mica told her sister, "If a bullet ends up in my head, it wasn't me."
-May 3. 2024- Mica’s attorney filed the certificate of service with the family court showing when and by whom John Paul Muller was served with the hearing notice.
-May 4, 2024 - Photos of John-Paul Miller with Susie Skinner surface. Allegedly, he's seen in public multiple times with Susie after Mica's death.
-May 5, 2024 - John-Paul Miller is temporarily dismissed of his duties at Solid Rock Church.
-May 5, 2024- Protests erupt outside of Solid Rock Church. JP and his father, Wayne, are present. Wayne videos the protestors.
-May 5, 2024 - The funeral for Mica Miller happens later that afternoon. According to one man, John-Paul Miller attends a bar and shows no remorse for his wife's death.
-May 6, 2024 - North Carolina medical examiner rules Mica's death a suicide.
-May 7, 2024 - Mica Miller's 911 call, along with surveillance photos, are released by Robeson County Sheriff's Department. Mica purchased a firearm at a local Pawn Shop and drove to a National Park where she commits suicide.
-May 7, 2024 - Police confirm John-Paul Miller was no where near the scene. They say he was with a woman who he's allegedly romantically involved with.
-May 9, 2024 – Robeson County Sheriff’s Office deletes photo of Mica at Dick’s Pawn Shop from their Facebook page. The post has been edited 9 times so far.

Hi guys, i'm a brazilian 17 year old guy that was happy, sympathetic and caring towards others, I am catholic and I participate in Sunday school every Saturday, but since the start of the pandemic in march 2020 onwards, i suddenly became brainwashed and paranoic with Christian conspiracy theories, mainly Qanon, and end times prophecies but in 2022 it only got worse, it all started at school when my sociology teacher who coincidentally was an evangelical pastor started talking a little about the end of times/Ragnarok and my friend said that between 2023, 2024 the apocalypse will begin, or it doesn't happen anything in these years, very probably in 2025 and 2027, and i searched on youtube and i saw various evangelical channels claiming that we are at the end of times and 2030 the world will end bc in that year Jesus will come back to only save evangelical christians and will only save those who are on the Life Book and will throw everyone who's those name wasn't on Life Book burn alive on the lake of fire of the hell alongside the antichrist, false prophet and everyone who followed him and God will destroy the universe and we will be living in the New Jerusalem, and they say repent of sins because the devil exists and they insist on saying that sin and the devil exist even though this has not even been scientifically proven, such as not wearing short clothes like shorts, jeans, not getting tattoos or piercings, not eating meat of pork, prohibiting homosexuality, free will, dating during adolescence and many others, they say that we are experiencing the greatest apostasy in history, which means that people are moving away from faith and and God and ignoring the warnings about the doomsday bc the world is becoming more ''sinful'' and the love between the people has been cooled and we are living like in the antediluvian days when Noah warned about the cataclysm but people ignored, mocked and called him demented and paranoid and instead they were eating, drinking and partying until the flood came and destroyed the world. world and killed everyone, and they keep repeating this saying that this is real even though it has been proven that it never happened and that it is impossible for a storm this strong to cover the top of Mount Everest, they think they are right and scientists are wrong, because science is an ''abominable sin'' against God, They say that God is merciful but he is also wrathful and cruel against those who do not follow his commandments. and they also talk about Jesus' appearance as if it were true at that time even though it has not yet been proven. i've watched some videos of these pastors and missionaries of my country and never got their prophecies and predictions wrong, all of things that have said become true
They say that geopolitical tensions are increasing which will cause ww3, it is no wonder that countless billionaires around the world like Mark Zuckerberg are building bunkers and selling several of their assets, i saw a letter written in 1873 that a American Freemason named Albert Pike who in his letter predicted the first two world wars, and is now supposedly ''predicted correctly'' the third world war, which would begin with a conflict between Zionist Israelis and Arabs, and also they claim that this war between Israel and Iran -Hamas is also the prophecy of Gog and Magog being fulfilled, They also say that the world will enter an unprecedented global economic crisis worse than the great depression, which would increase prices absurdly and this would culminate in the greatest famine the world has ever had, surpassing the great famine of the Middle Age,
They also say that elites such as the World Economic Forum, the UN and the Bilderberg Group will launch a gigantic EMP weapon that will shut down all energy and appliances in the world, and that they will then enact global martial law that will taking citizens off the streets and homes via buses and putting them in concentration camps and killing mainly white and conservative Christian groups and burying them in FEMA coffins which will start the famous New World Order and mass depopulation through the great reset and agenda 2030 and will put an end to all cash and create an electronic currency where payment is made with the global fingerprint, which they also say will replace passports with this global biometric password, they also say that They will do away with clothes and food and will replace them with processed foods made from insects, GMOs and laboratory-grown meats and everyone will be forced to wear the same clothes and have their names changed they also say that they will install government cameras inside the houses to know if any intruder is entering the empty houses
and all of this will begin the antichrist's rise to power, he will be a powerful leader who will unite all sovereign governments into one government and people will worship him and will implant the mark of the beast, where no one will buy and sell without it and will kill everyone who does not accept the mark, which means that everyone in the cities will die, only those who go to the fields or mountains will survive, it is no wonder that they are asking to stock up on water, non-perishable food, batteries , flashlights, medicines especially ivermectin (so much so that I've seen reports of people curing themselves of COVID using this medicine and chloroquine) and radios to survive between 2025 and 2027, because according to them, there will be a pandemic 30 times more lethal than the previous one that will kill almost 400 million people in just two years and that will be the period where seal the seven-year peace agreement between Christianity, Judaism and Islam and will sacrifice a red heifer in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, where it will be destroyed in sequence to begin the construction of the third temple where the throne of the antichrist will be during the final three and a half years
They also insists that global warming is a lie bc all of these disasters that are happening such as frequent strong earthquakes which happened in turkey, morocco, japan and taiwan recently, floods that left the southern of my country almost destroyed, tornadoes and hurricanes becoming stronger and killing more people and wildfires becoming more frequently is caused by these globalists, for example, the recent wildfires that happened in hawaii, canada and chile was caused by massive lasers coming from satellites and these floods and earthquakes caused by HAARP, and the fact-checking and social media such as reuters and afp is lying bc they are owned by rothschild and george soros for example
And i'm worried to have a cancer or a fatal heart attack when i become 20 years old that they discovered that in the last years have an increase on cases of cancer and fatal heart attack on young people, and they claim that is bc of the vaccines bc they contain aborted fetuses and microchips and graphene
And they also talk about the woke agenda, where defenders of this theory claim that globalists use films, video games and series to misrepresent characters from these entertainment industries to promote progressive agendas such as LGBT, black lives matter, abortion and feminism, for example, they made Ariel from The Little Mermaid black in live-action instead in white, as a way of indoctrinating masses and grooming children to be subjected to being perverse, it's no wonder that Disney is in one of the biggest crises in its history by excessively promoting identity issues in every film they release. And it's also no wonder that the number of abortions in the world increased over the last years
What I am most afraid of is the claim that globalists have knowledge of future events that makes the masses accept the event when a certain thing happens, this is called predictive programming, for example, in many disaster and science fiction films, there is a subliminal message in numbers called ''923'', supporters of this number mean that something very bad will happen on September 23rd, but obviously nothing happens, in White Noise for example, there was a train accident in the state of Ohio and in 2023 a train derailment with toxic products occurred in the same state as the film, Black Mirror ''predicted'' several technological innovations, The Simpsons for example predicted the September 11 attacks and Trump's victory in the elections, The Matrix also predicted predicted several technological innovations, such as the redpill movement and the production of babies in uterine machines. As for the Leave the World Behind', they say that the film predicted the accident of the ship that collided with the bridge in baltimore, Lastly, the film The Knowing is incredibly identical to the plot of the biblical apocalypse, but these claims are already debunked by fact checks
And i became scared of these prophecies that have been ''fulfilled'' such as Ezekiel which mentions that Dead Sea became filled with fishes and signs in the sky and stars disappearing
i will mention some of them:
They discovered recently that the moon have some rust pigments and the sun are frequently producing giant black spots which in apocalypse 6:12-17 means that the sun became black and the moon becoming blood
The days are passing faster, which on matthew 24:22 mentions that unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened.And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened.
The Euphrates River is drying up which in apocalypse mentions that the sixth angel poured his bowl over the Euphrates River and its waters dried up and released four demons who destroyed half of the population
Some Rivers and seas are becoming red, which refers to Apocalypse 16:4 that the third angel poured his bowl on rivers and seas and became red as dead blood
And I started to think that some mathematical calculations they do are simply not coincidences, they took the year the Black Death ended in 1353 with the year the WHO declared a global COVID emergency in 2019, subtracting those years would give the result in 666 (2019-1353=666 to be simpler) which alludes to the number of the beast and nd other math that they also thinks its a proof that we are at the end of times uf we use the word ''CORONA'' as a code where the alphabet is corresponding to its letter in ascending order (for example a = 1, b = 2), it would give the numbers 3, 15, 18, 15, 14, 1 will also give the number of the beast is correct if we multiply these numbers.
I'm trying to follow channels that disagree that we are in the end times and treat people with love, like the method of preterism where it states that the apocalypse happened in the year 70, but they say that this is heresy because in Matthew 24:24 it says that in the last days false prophets will emerge deceiving many people and in 2 Peter 3:3 where it says that at the end of time many will mock and disagree with the imminent Return of Jesus
i'm asked my parents and my friends to repent of your sins and believe in the Word of God, But I bothered them so much that now they don't even want to hear it,
however after all that, I started to think that these evangelical channels only preach fear in people, thinking that Jesus is going to return physically and that I have been superior all the time for no reason at all. I researched these things so much that now it appears when I search for an account on Instagram or YouTube, I would like to thank anyone who could give me some tips on how to get out of this and get rid of these pests, how i do?

Hi guys, i'm a brazilian 17 year old guy that was happy, sympathetic and caring towards others, I am catholic and I participate in Sunday school every Saturday, but since the start of the pandemic in march 2020 onwards, i suddenly became brainwashed and paranoic with Christian conspiracy theories, mainly Qanon, and end times prophecies but in 2022 it only got worse, it all started at school when my sociology teacher who coincidentally was an evangelical pastor started talking a little about the end of times/Ragnarok and my friend said that between 2023, 2024 the apocalypse will begin, or it doesn't happen anything in these years, very probably in 2025 and 2027, and i searched on youtube and i saw various evangelical channels claiming that we are at the end of times and 2030 the world will end bc in that year Jesus will come back to only save evangelical christians and will only save those who are on the Life Book and will throw everyone who's those name wasn't on Life Book burn alive on the lake of fire of the hell alongside the antichrist, false prophet and everyone who followed him and God will destroy the universe and we will be living in the New Jerusalem, and they say repent of sins because the devil exists and they insist on saying that sin and the devil exist even though this has not even been scientifically proven, such as not wearing short clothes like shorts, jeans, not getting tattoos or piercings, not eating meat of pork, prohibiting homosexuality, free will, dating during adolescence and many others, they say that we are experiencing the greatest apostasy in history, which means that people are moving away from faith and and God and ignoring the warnings about the doomsday bc the world is becoming more ''sinful'' and the love between the people has been cooled and we are living like in the antediluvian days when Noah warned about the cataclysm but people ignored, mocked and called him demented and paranoid and instead they were eating, drinking and partying until the flood came and destroyed the world. world and killed everyone, and they keep repeating this saying that this is real even though it has been proven that it never happened and that it is impossible for a storm this strong to cover the top of Mount Everest, they think they are right and scientists are wrong, because science is an ''abominable sin'' against God, They say that God is merciful but he is also wrathful and cruel against those who do not follow his commandments. and they also talk about Jesus' appearance as if it were true at that time even though it has not yet been proven. i've watched some videos of these pastors and missionaries of my country and never got their prophecies and predictions wrong, all of things that have said become true
They say that geopolitical tensions are increasing which will cause ww3, it is no wonder that countless billionaires around the world like Mark Zuckerberg are building bunkers and selling several of their assets, i saw a letter written in 1873 that a American Freemason named Albert Pike who in his letter predicted the first two world wars, and is now supposedly ''predicted correctly'' the third world war, which would begin with a conflict between Zionist Israelis and Arabs, and also they claim that this war between Israel and Iran -Hamas is also the prophecy of Gog and Magog being fulfilled, They also say that the world will enter an unprecedented global economic crisis worse than the great depression, which would increase prices absurdly and this would culminate in the greatest famine the world has ever had, surpassing the great famine of the Middle Age,
They also say that elites such as the World Economic Forum, the UN and the Bilderberg Group will launch a gigantic EMP weapon that will shut down all energy and appliances in the world, and that they will then enact global martial law that will taking citizens off the streets and homes via buses and putting them in concentration camps and killing mainly white and conservative Christian groups and burying them in FEMA coffins which will start the famous New World Order and mass depopulation through the great reset and agenda 2030 and will put an end to all cash and create an electronic currency where payment is made with the global fingerprint, which they also say will replace passports with this global biometric password, they also say that They will do away with clothes and food and will replace them with processed foods made from insects, GMOs and laboratory-grown meats and everyone will be forced to wear the same clothes and have their names changed they also say that they will install government cameras inside the houses to know if any intruder is entering the empty houses
and all of this will begin the antichrist's rise to power, he will be a powerful leader who will unite all sovereign governments into one government and people will worship him and will implant the mark of the beast, where no one will buy and sell without it and will kill everyone who does not accept the mark, which means that everyone in the cities will die, only those who go to the fields or mountains will survive, it is no wonder that they are asking to stock up on water, non-perishable food, batteries , flashlights, medicines especially ivermectin (so much so that I've seen reports of people curing themselves of COVID using this medicine and chloroquine) and radios to survive between 2025 and 2027, because according to them, there will be a pandemic 30 times more lethal than the previous one that will kill almost 400 million people in just two years and that will be the period where seal the seven-year peace agreement between Christianity, Judaism and Islam and will sacrifice a red heifer in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, where it will be destroyed in sequence to begin the construction of the third temple where the throne of the antichrist will be during the final three and a half years
They also insists that global warming is a lie bc all of these disasters that are happening such as frequent strong earthquakes which happened in turkey, morocco, japan and taiwan recently, floods that left the southern of my country almost destroyed, tornadoes and hurricanes becoming stronger and killing more people and wildfires becoming more frequently is caused by these globalists, for example, the recent wildfires that happened in hawaii, canada and chile was caused by massive lasers coming from satellites and these floods and earthquakes caused by HAARP, and the fact-checking and social media such as reuters and afp is lying bc they are owned by rothschild and george soros for example
And i'm worried to have a cancer or a fatal heart attack when i become 20 years old that they discovered that in the last years have an increase on cases of cancer and fatal heart attack on young people, and they claim that is bc of the vaccines bc they contain aborted fetuses and microchips and graphene
And they also talk about the woke agenda, where defenders of this theory claim that globalists use films, video games and series to misrepresent characters from these entertainment industries to promote progressive agendas such as LGBT, black lives matter, abortion and feminism, for example, they made Ariel from The Little Mermaid black in live-action instead in white, as a way of indoctrinating masses and grooming children to be subjected to being perverse, it's no wonder that Disney is in one of the biggest crises in its history by excessively promoting identity issues in every film they release. And it's also no wonder that the number of abortions in the world increased over the last years
What I am most afraid of is the claim that globalists have knowledge of future events that makes the masses accept the event when a certain thing happens, this is called predictive programming, for example, in many disaster and science fiction films, there is a subliminal message in numbers called ''923'', supporters of this number mean that something very bad will happen on September 23rd, but obviously nothing happens, in White Noise for example, there was a train accident in the state of Ohio and in 2023 a train derailment with toxic products occurred in the same state as the film, Black Mirror ''predicted'' several technological innovations, The Simpsons for example predicted the September 11 attacks and Trump's victory in the elections, The Matrix also predicted predicted several technological innovations, such as the redpill movement and the production of babies in uterine machines. As for the Leave the World Behind', they say that the film predicted the accident of the ship that collided with the bridge in baltimore, Lastly, the film The Knowing is incredibly identical to the plot of the biblical apocalypse, but these claims are already debunked by fact checks
And i became scared of these prophecies that have been ''fulfilled'' such as Ezekiel which mentions that Dead Sea became filled with fishes and signs in the sky and stars disappearing
i will mention some of them:
They discovered recently that the moon have some rust pigments and the sun are frequently producing giant black spots which in apocalypse 6:12-17 means that the sun became black and the moon becoming blood
The days are passing faster, which on matthew 24:22 mentions that unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened.And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened.
The Euphrates River is drying up which in apocalypse mentions that the sixth angel poured his bowl over the Euphrates River and its waters dried up and released four demons who destroyed half of the population
Some Rivers and seas are becoming red, which refers to Apocalypse 16:4 that the third angel poured his bowl on rivers and seas and became red as dead blood
And I started to think that some mathematical calculations they do are simply not coincidences, they took the year the Black Death ended in 1353 with the year the WHO declared a global COVID emergency in 2019, subtracting those years would give the result in 666 (2019-1353=666 to be simpler) which alludes to the number of the beast and nd other math that they also thinks its a proof that we are at the end of times uf we use the word ''CORONA'' as a code where the alphabet is corresponding to its letter in ascending order (for example a = 1, b = 2), it would give the numbers 3, 15, 18, 15, 14, 1 will also give the number of the beast is correct if we multiply these numbers.
I'm trying to follow channels that disagree that we are in the end times and treat people with love, like the method of preterism where it states that the apocalypse happened in the year 70, but they say that this is heresy because in Matthew 24:24 it says that in the last days false prophets will emerge deceiving many people and in 2 Peter 3:3 where it says that at the end of time many will mock and disagree with the imminent Return of Jesus
i'm asked my parents and my friends to repent of your sins and believe in the Word of God, But I bothered them so much that now they don't even want to hear it,
however after all that, I started to think that these evangelical channels only preach fear in people, thinking that Jesus is going to return physically and that I have been superior all the time for no reason at all. I researched these things so much that now it appears when I search for an account on Instagram or YouTube, I would like to thank anyone who could give me some tips on how to get out of this and get rid of these pests, how i do?

I thought I would do an analysis of social principles that are revelant to our times from the Old Testament. For this post I am going to focus on the theme of being the "lesser evil". We often hear this term thrown around a lot. Especially in the political cycles of Western politics. I thought I would look at what the OT has to say about this by focusing on the Book of Kings, Hosea and the Psalms which recounts the story of King Hoshea of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the fall of the Northern Kingdom to the Assyrians. Here are the relevant passages:

• "In the twelfth year of King Ahaz of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel; he reigned for nine years. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not like the kings of Israel who were before him"(2 Kings 17:1-2)
• "They rejected all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves cast images of two calves; they made a sacred pole, worshipped all the hosts of heaven, and served Baal. They made their sons and daughters pass through the fire; they used divination and augury; and they sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking his anger."(2 Kings 16-17)
• "They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan"(Psalm 106:36-38)
• "Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with blood. As robbers lie in wait for someone, so the priests are banded together; they murder on the road to Shechem, they commit monstrous crime"(Hosea 6:8-9)

So what we see is the following. Hoshea as mentioned was the King of Israel in the lead up to the Assyrian catastrophe. It says he "was not as evil" as the previous Kings before him. Yet he still did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord. And what is the evil that Israelite Kings and Israelite society was engaged in? Idolatry, child and human sacrifice, and systematic murder by those in the social and religious class. So when it says Hoshea "was not as evil" as the previous Kings, it is saying that under him Israel wasn't sacrificing "as many people and children" to their idols. They were committing "as many murders" as they were before. That standard from the Biblical perspective is a low and unacceptable one. Just because he wasn't "as evil" as the previous Kings doesn't mean he isn't categorised as "evil". Evil is evil, regardless of what degrees it comes in. And it needs a prophetic challenge. Furthermore if we read the Book of Kings we see that in the lead up to the Assyrian disaster you had a series of coups and counter coups by the partisan factions in Israel. Hoshea came to power in a coup against his political rival Pekah(2 Kings 15:30). Yet from the Biblical perspective it didn't matter which partisan faction came to power because they were all a part of the same corrupt, immoral social and political system that ended up proving to be irredeemable.
This is course relevant today because you are seeing lesser of evil arguments being deployed all across the board. Especially in the context of the powerful protests taking place around the issue of Gaza, but more broadly when it comes to the core issues of justice for the working class as well as justice for those who are the victims things like a brutal prison industrial complex. The idolatry mentioned in the text is also relevant because even though it doesn't involve physical objects in our type, we still have idols and social sacred cows that our society is devoted to. Archbishop Oscar Romero in his Pastoral Letters mentioned how the idols of Capital, Militarism and National Security are the modern day expressions of Moloch. And just like how Moloch demanded the living human sacrifice of human beings, these idols also demand the sacrifice of human beings. And we have obedient servants in our Elite class that serve these idols. Just because one partisan faction among the ruling class isn't willing to sacrifice as many people to these social and political idols, it doesn't mean that they aren't still the obedient servants of them. And that, from a Biblical perspective, is evil. Pure and simple. So no "lesser two evils" talking points can be used to obfuscate our prophetic and ethical responsibility to call out the blatant evil and wickedness in our society, to call out the Elites who are a part of a wicked social structure built on structural sin, and to condemn the crimes against humanity that we see in front of us. The barbaric slaughter of men, women and children that we see for example in Gaza, funded by the military industrial complex, and supported by elites of all parts of our society should be condemned. Regardless of whether those elites have a "conservative" or a "liberal" and "inclusive" "lesser of two evil face" that sanitises this evil. Same things when we look across the board on a range of human rights and social justice issues. The OT calls us to always dissent and be dissatisfied with structures of evil, regardless of whether they are "more" or "less" evil.