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Pray for the Children of Gaza and Israel
God, you are the light that darkness cannot overcome. You are the Prince of Peace and the Reconciler, you make the impossible possible.
Protect all those affected by the war between Hamas and Israel. May the horrific acts of terror be stopped, may those taken hostage be freed, may those seeking refuge from rockets and bombs be spared, and may this terrible conflict come to an end.
I pray especially for the children on both sides who are the most vulnerable—hold your hand over them, God, and give them a peaceful future. Amen.
Two things that should be self-evident:
- Murdering, raping, and kidnapping civilians is not a “fight for liberation”; these are horrific acts of terror that Hamas has committed against Israel and cannot be excused.
- Stopping the import of food and water to the entire population of Gaza is the wrong way for Israel to respond to these acts of terror; it is a life-threatening collective punishment that violates international humanitarian law.
Half of the population of the Gaza Strip is children. A million children who bear no responsibility for Hamas’s rule and their horrific terror attacks. They are some of the most vulnerable right now in the war.
Doctors Without Borders are on the ground in Gaza and report that most of their patients are children between the ages of 10 and 14. They have called for humanitarian corridors so that food and medicine can reach the most vulnerable.
They also write that they have offered medical support to Israeli hospitals where a very high number of injured are being cared for after Hamas’s terror attacks. So far, the Israeli healthcare system has managed without their support, but they are ready to help there too if needed.
All people are created by God, and all suffering on both sides must be prevented. As missionary Heidi Baker wrote the other day on site in Jerusalem: “Pray for peace and for the innocent, no matter their nation or creed.”
Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.
Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!
What would it look like if Jesus entered Jerusalem today?
Happy Easter! Like many others, I’m fascinated and a bit terrified by the quick development of artificial intelligence (AI). But just like the internet, I believe that Christians should do their best to use tools that can cause a lot of harm to promote the Kingdom of God instead. So, when I heard that the latest version of the AI art generator Midjourney could produce photorealistic images, I was eager to give it a try.
As Easter was approaching, I decided to generate images of Jesus entering modern-day Jerusalem to help people of today picture what it could be like for people 2,000 years ago to experience the arrival of the Messiah. I was blown away by the results.
As you can tell, Midjourney version 5 was able to create stunningly vivid images that truly brought the story to life. I was thrilled to share these images with others, as they can be a powerful tool to help people visualize the Bible stories and connect with them on a deeper level. Before long, the images were shared over 1,000 times on Facebook.
Admittedly, many shared them just because they found them funny. They also stirred a lot of debate, since many complained that this Jesus was too white compared to the original. Others pointed out that several people in Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria doesn’t have much darker skin tone than this. As for me, I make no claim that this represents a historically accurate portrayal of the Savior – rather, it portrays the common Western conception of him which makes him recognizable to most of us.
Some also pointed out that a motorcycle really isn’t a good modern equivalent to a donkey, both in terms of cost and environmental destruction. So I generated new images in which Jesus chooses a cheaper, more climate-friendly mode of transportation into the holy city:
With the ability to generate photorealistic images so easily, the risk of deception and manipulation becomes a very real concern. In a world where deepfakes and fake news are becoming increasingly common, it’s important to be aware of the potential risks of technology like this.
In fact, I experienced this firsthand when I also decided to generate images of the pope getting married as a playful experiment. AI generations of Francis had already gone viral, and I generated these images to contribute to the meme as well as providing subtle criticism of Catholic priests and bishops not being able to marry despite there not being any biblical command of that sort (on the contrary, the apostle Peter had a mother-in-law!).
Even though I shared the images in a group called “Midjourney AI”, they quickly found a life of their own in which their AI origins were shrouded in darkness. After a few days, they went viral in Nigeria and Congo, with many people believing that they were genuine as influential people on social media claimed that they were photos and some even gave the “wife” a name! If one looks closely at the images, it is clear that the face of the “wife” changes from picture to picture, and hands and other details are far from perfect. But who has time to look closely in an age of instant gratification and quick shares? Fortunately, a Congolese paper eventually clarified that the images were generated by AI. Unfortunately, this led to Facebook labelling all uploads of the images as “disinformation” – even when posted in AI groups!
This experience was a stark reminder of just how easily technology can be used to deceive and manipulate people. As Christians, it’s important for us to approach technology with caution and discernment. While tools like Midjourney version 5 can be powerful tools for creating meaningful and inspiring art, we must also be aware of the potential dangers they can pose. We must use these tools responsibly and with integrity, always keeping in mind the potential impact they can have on those who view them.
While my experience with Midjourney version 5 has been both exciting and eye-opening, it’s important to remember that technology is a powerful tool that must be used responsibly. As Christians, we must remain vigilant and discerning, using our creativity to glorify God and uplift others, while avoiding the pitfalls of deception and manipulation that can accompany technology like this.
Hundreds of People Saved at Asbury Revival, According to Professor
Dr. Craig S. Keener, a highly respected New Testament scholar at Asbury Theological Seminary, is widely known for his work on the Bible’s background and his enormous books consisting of thousands of pages with tens of thousands of references. He’s not known to be a very emotional guy. And yet, during the Asbury revival, he proclaimed that he could feel the tangible presence of God just by walking near the chapel area.
The Asbury Revival, which took place at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, began on February 8, 2023, when a group of students spontaneously stayed in Hughes Auditorium after a regularly scheduled chapel service. Asbury President Kevin Brown sent out a brief email inviting others to join in the worship. News of the revival quickly spread through social media and Christian online publications, drawing thousands of people each day, with total visitors ranging between 50,000 and 70,000.
Dr. Keener, who joined the Asbury faculty in 2011 after teaching at Palmer Theological Seminary and Hood Theological Seminary, has authored 25 books and more than a million copies in circulation. He was an eyewitness to what went on during the revival meetings and has defended the outpouring against critics on YouTube. Recently, I had the honor of interviewing Dr. Keener about how the revival started, why the public phase eventually was shut down – and how the Holy Spirit impacted him personally:
It’s not every day that you see an accomplished New Testament scholar proclaim in all caps on social media: “I CAN FEEL THE TANGIBLE PRESENCE OF GOD”. But this was indeed what Dr. Keener experienced, and he hadn’t even got inside the building yet! Keener could tell me that a teacher he trusts reports that hundreds of people have been saved during the outpouring, including students who come from Christian families but have never taken the faith of their parents seriously. Additionally, there are many reports of healing as well as you can see in this video:
Dr. Craig Keener’s experience at the Asbury Revival serves as a powerful testimony to the profound impact that such events can have on individuals, regardless of their academic or spiritual background. It illustrates the importance of remaining open to the divine presence and the transformative power it can bring to our lives. As a testament to the power of faith and the presence of God, the revival demonstrates the potential for spiritual growth and transformation, even among those who approach their faith from a more intellectual perspective.
“Jesus Revolution” Movie Causes People to Worship in Theaters, with Some being Saved
The film Jesus Revolution about the youth revival in the 1970s has done much better than expected in US cinemas – and now there are reports that some have even given their lives to Jesus after seeing the film. At a movie theater in Miami, a prayer and praise meeting arose after the film was over where some made the decision to become Christians.
Here I have made a video where I have collected clips from the revival meeting at the cinema:
People were saved even during filming. When Jonathan Roumie, who plays the hippie preacher Lonnie Frisbee in the film (and who also plays Jesus in the series The Chosen) filmed a scene where Lonnie baptized hundreds of people in the sea, some of the extras said that they had never been baptized but wanted to be born again in the name of Jesus. Thus, some of the baptisms that made it into the movie are not staged, but the cameras filmed people being baptized for real! 🙌
The film’s producer also said that many in the studio and on the production team who were not Christians were moved to tears when they saw the film and wanted to know more about Jesus. This is truly no ordinary Hollywood movie!
It’s amazing to see how the Holy Spirit is impacting people’s lives through this movie. Now sadly, I haven’t been able to watch the movie myself since I live in Sweden, but a Swedish friend of mine, Anders-Petter Sjödin, went to the premiere in Los Angeles and said that it was amazing. If you have the opportunity to see it, you should definitely take it.
The Prayer that Started the Asbury Revival
Right now, an amazing renewal is taking place at Asbury University in Kentucky – a prayer meeting that usually lasts for 15 minutes has instead been going on with uninterrupted prayer and worship for over a week. Thousands have made their way to the meeting, with students and teachers worshiping together with family members and strangers. Classes and assignments have been cancelled to be replaced with tearful prayers for God’s power and love.
“Revive us by your love”, pastor Zach Meerkreebs prayed at the chapel meeting of Asbury University on February 8th, 2023. Since then, the prayer and worship of that meeting hasn’t ceased and thousands have come to be blessed, healed, saved and transformed by the power of God. In this video, you can hear Zach’s full prayer as well as some testimonies about what God has done to them:
Jason Vickers, one of the teachers, wrote: “The peacefulness in that place is so palpable that a mere ten minutes had made an impression that will last the remainder of my lifetime.”
(more…)The Gospel of Guns vs the Gospel of Jesus
I live in a country where there are no school shootings. It’s probably due to us having extremely restrictive gun laws in Sweden, as it is illegal for civilians to carry a gun unless they have a license and guns are required to be unloaded, hidden, and supervised when transporting them.
The United States, on the other hand, has more guns than people, guns are involved in 79 % of homicides (compared with 4 % in the UK) and the gun lobby is extremely rich. Tragically, many pastors and other Christian leaders enthusiastically support the gun industry despite Jesus’ words about loving our enemies and turning the other cheek. As a result, many of them refuse to acknowledge the need for more gun control in order to prevent school shootings like the one in Uvalde that killed 19 children and two adults.
For example, worship leader Sean Feucht warned his followers against seeking political solutions to the gun problem, telling them that the solution is to bring God “back in schools” (which, ironically, is a political suggestion):
In fact, when the National Rifle Association (NRA), the leading gun lobby organisation in the US, arranged a prayer breakfast at their national convention just a few days after the shooting, nobody on stage mentioned the attack or prayed for the families of the victims. Instead, they prayed against “Democrats and liberals” who want to have better background checks on those who want to buy guns. After all, this is the same organisation that has actively lobbied against background checks and undermined efforts to keep firearms away from those with mental illness.
Yet, there was a voice in the wilderness, a remnant of righteousness among the gunmongers. Our friend Shane Claiborne, activist and theologian, was there. Not because he is a NRA supporter, but because he wanted to show the people at this prayer breakfast the difference between the Gospel of Jesus and the gospel of guns.
He and some friends started to pray for the victims of the shooting in Uvalde, and immediately were kicked out by the police. Shane writes at Red Letter Christians blog:
I carried with me the Uvalde paper we had picked up. The front page had all those babies’ faces and the two teachers who died with them. We also had a list of all their names, along with the names of the 10 people killed in Buffalo. Our goal wasn’t to get kicked out of the prayer breakfast. Our goal wasn’t event to disrupt it.
We had tickets and waited until there was a space without speakers in the program so we didn’t interrupt. Our goal was singular – to pray for the victims by name, and to invite everyone to join us. With the help of a coalition of clergy around the country known as National Faith Leaders For Ending Gun Violence, we had created a liturgical, call-and-response, prayer. Before reading aloud each name, we say together, “God knows their names.” And after each name, we say, “Lord, have mercy.” Simple, heartfelt prayer.
As we were told that the program would pause, and breakfast would begin, I stood, holding the Uvalde paper, and invited people to join us in prayer for the victims. After the first name, we were told that we would be arrested if we did not leave. So we invited people to join us outside, as we respectfully complied with police orders. It is noteworthy that the police came quicker to kick us out of the prayer meeting than to confront the shooter in Uvalde.
“I’m going to go straight to Jesus and say we cannot serve two masters. And we really are at a crossroads where we’ve got to choose: Are we going to follow Jesus or the NRA? And literally, you couldn’t come up with much more contrasting messages. The gospel of Jesus — turn the other cheek, love our enemies — stands in direct opposition to the rhetoric of the NRA — stand your ground. The gun and the cross give us two very different versions of power.”
[…]
“Idols are things that we put our trust in. They’re not God, but we treat them like they are,” Claiborne said. “We put this sort of sacred reverence into things that should only be given to God. And it’s been said that idols are things that we are willing to die for, kill for, and sacrifice our children for. And literally, by that definition, I think guns would have that sort of unreasonable dedication.”
“Guns are not made in the image of God but children are,” he added.
Amen.
Research Shows Nonviolence is Twice as Effective than Violence
We live in a violent world. The war in Ukraine is killing thousands and causes huge waves of refugees, economic instability and food shortages. The war in Syria is still going on, and the conflicts in Yemen, Afghanistan and South Sudan no longer even make headlines. During most of the last decade, the world has become less peaceful.
In response to such violence, many people think that the solution is more violence. Conventional wisdom tells us that we need to arm ourselves so we become stronger and deadlier than the “bad guys”.
Christian pacifists, who just like most Christians for the first 300 years believe that Jesus’ words about loving our enemies and turning the other cheek mean that we should not use violence, are often accused of being naive. Some have even claimed that Christian pacifism is evil! While abstaining from violence sounds loving in theory, many argue that the practical consequences of such a stance is catastrophic with countless innocent people killed as the “good guys” refused to harm or kill those who were after civilian blood.
War and violence are thus portrayed as a necessary evil, a last resort that we unfortunately have to use to stop authoritarian, mass-killing regimes.
All this is intuition. It’s what seems reasonable. But when researchers started to compare violent resistance to nonviolent resistance, they were in for a chock.
It turns out that nonviolence is at least twice as effective.
I encountered this research when I was part of a program in peace and conflict studies at Uppsala University. The findings is a real game-changer, making scholars from all around the world rethinking the need and use for military violence in the modern era.
An influential study by conflict researchers Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan from 2012 showed that nonviolent movements are twice as effective as violent movements in achieving their goals. They expanded upon this research in the book Why Civil Resistance Works. They collected data from over 300 protest movements between 1900 and 2016. 53 % of the nonviolent movements managed to achieve their goal, usually a change of regime, within a year, compared with 26% of the violent movements.
Of the 25 largest movements they studied, 20 were nonviolent, and 14 of them achieved their goals. Most astonishingly, if the nonviolent movements included at least 3.5% of the population, they always succeeded in meeting their goal. Always. Chenoweth calls this the “3.5 rule”.
This study was groundbreaking, as no one had compared the results of violent and nonviolent methods in such a comprehensive way before. In 2018, Chenoweth published a new study together with Evan Perkoski that examined how well nonviolence compared to violence counteracted mass killing, when regimes kill 1000 people or more. They found that nonviolent movements were five times more effective at avoiding this than violent movements.
What are the reasons for the effectiveness of nonviolence? Chenoweth points to several factors. Nonviolence is generally cheaper and can easily recruit many more, there is greater variety of nonviolent methods than violent methods, it is psychologically more difficult for loyalists to harm or kill nonviolent trainees than armed rebels, and it is easier for loyalists to change sides and unite with nonviolent protests and nonviolent sabotage.
Chenoweth’s work has made a significant impact on peace and conflict research in general. Even non-pacifists like James Pattison and Ed Cairns have gained greater respect for non-violent methods and warned against resorting to violence too quickly. Cairns wrote:
I’ve never believed that pacifism is an adequate answer to a world of atrocities that – in truly exceptional cases – call out for an armed response. But there’s an awful lot of evidence for caution – and reason to give peace a chance.
Note that Chenoweth’s research does not say that nonviolence leads to guaranteed success. Rather, nonviolence is more likely to succeed than violence. Even in countries where nonviolent campaigns have failed, people have been ten times more likely to move to democracy within a five-year period than if they protested with violence.
Even if you can not guarantee that non-violence will succeed, you can also not guarantee that violence will succeed. The “necessary” in violence as “necessary evil” is difficult to prove scientifically.
This is great news! Loving enemies, like Jesus commanded us to, is actually more beneficial than killing them. Such love does not have to be at the expense of protecting the innocent. The question now is if the leaders of the world will take this research seriously and spend time and money developing nonviolent defense systems rather than military ones?
Politicians Who Refer to the Bible as They Bomb Children
On a war rally in a Moscow stadium last Friday, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin said that his “special military operation” in Ukraine, which he refuses to call a war, reminded him of the words of Jesus in John 15:13: “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
This is just a few days after a pregnant woman who was damaged by Russian bombing in the occupied city of Mariupol died along with her unborn baby. Ukrainian authorities claim that over 100 children have died in the war as of yet, and although the numbers are difficult to verify at this point there is no doubt that Putin has killed children in this conflict.
One of them was named Alisa Perebyinis. She was nine years old, and her father found out that she had died along with his wife and 18-year old son on Twitter.
To kill children in a pointless, unlawful and unrighteous war is despicable in and of itself. But Putin goes even further than that, claiming that his sinful acts are an expression of Biblical love.
He quoted someone who never used violence against anyone and who taught us to love our enemies, Jesus Christ, in order to justify slaughtering innocent people – many of which are Christians!
Putin is of course far from the only politician who has religious rhetoric in order to motivate people to war. George W. Bush claimed that God told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and called the war on terrorism a “crusade“.
Israel’s former corrupt prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu constantly refers to biblical texts when justifying Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and its warfare against Palestinians.
Even the Nazis during World War Two quoted passages like Romans 13 in order to make people submit to Hitler.
Jesus warned that there would be false prophets who claim to follow him but refuse to do his will (Matthew 7:21). He said that there would be those who persecute Christians who actually think that they serve God (John 16:2).
Whether Putin is deluded enough to actually think that he is loving people as he bombs children is impossible to know. Perhaps he hates God and just uses religious language to gain support.
In either case, the Bible makes it clear that all those who take the Lord’s name in vain to justify their own evil actions will stand accountable before him on the last day. God will restore all those who fell victim to injustice, and invite us to an eternal life with him without any wars, lies or oppression.
All thanks to the one who truly gave his life because of his love for us: Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.
Here’s how you can donate to help the victims of war in Ukraine.
My Master’s Thesis on the Pentecostal Pacifists Who Welcomed Apocalyptic Genocide
“War is not the will of God, this we know.”
– Folke Thorell, Evangelii Härold, 1967.
“God will let the satanic rearmament of nuclear weapons and biological warfare strike the godless themselves in forms of plagues that will exterminate large portions of humanity.”
– Folke Thorell, Evangelii Härold, 1968.
Pentecostals were the largest religious group among conscientious objectors in Sweden between 1967 and 1971, a time characterized by passionate debates on the ethics of war in the shadows of Vietnam and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In my master’s thesis on church history, I aimed to review and analyze how the Pentecostal periodicals Evangelii Härold and Dagen described and ethically motivated military violence and pacifism during this period.
The purpose was to identify potential motivations for pacifism and/or military support during a time when a large number of Pentecostals refused to bear arms, with particular interest in how these motivations related to ethical evaluation on contemporary wars.
The findings were fascinating. Pacifism and conscientious objection were regularly promoted and seldom criticized, while most contemporary military violence was condemned with one glaring exception: Israeli warfare.
Folke Thorell, quoted above, thought that God principally is against war, but allows them to fulfill his eschatological plans and even engages himself in warfare. He envisioned two-thirds of all Jews to die in a future third world war involving nuclear bombs, a genocide so brutal it would make the Holocaust seem “minuscule” in comparison.
Unlike the American war effort in Vietnam, Israel’s wars were commonly viewed as eschatologically significant and biblically predicted holy wars, with several writers suggesting that God himself has waged and will wage war on Israel’s behalf. Pacifism was primarily motivated by obedience to the Bible rather than empathy, fitting with Lisa Cahill’s theory of obediential pacifism being distinct from empathic pacifism in the Christian tradition.
Support for Israeli warfare was also derived from biblical interpretation, primarily based on Old Testament texts. It was further motivated by ideas of Jewish suffering and death being part of God’s plan, with several Pentecostal writers speculating that an apocalyptic genocide would precede the second coming of Christ.
Many Pentecostals did not see this as standing in conflict with personal pacifism and conscientious objection, as both views were perceived as biblical.
Future research could further explore the relationship between Pentecostal eschatology and empathy, along with how mid-century Pentecostal Zionism might have been influenced by antisemitic ideas from the 1930’s.
Why We Should Not Portray Jesus’ Birth as Something Cute and Cosy
by Greg Boyd, originally published on his blog and in the Minnesota Christian Chronicle, Volume #28 No.21, December 3, 2006.
Few things capture the spirit of Christmas better than a traditional nativity scene for many people. The star shines down on the serene baby Jesus, sleeping in a nice little manger with golden straw spilling out from the edges. He’s surrounded by Mary, Joseph, three wise men and several shepherds. They are all radiantly peaceful as they gaze in wonder at the newborn Christ child. Even the animals lying in their nice clean hay seem almost Spirit-filled as they look serenely upon the infant Savior. As the song goes, even when the cattle start lowing and the poor baby wakes, the little Lord Jesus no crying he makes. It’s a cute, quaint scene, capturing the spirit of a cute, quaint holiday.
Now, I don’t mean to be a scrooge, and I’m not suggesting there’s anything heretical about this cute, quaint scene. I’m all for tradition – our family sets up a nativity every year. On the other hand, I think it’s important to realize that this scene is not completely accurate.
Try to imagine for a moment how things most likely unfolded the night Jesus was born. Mary and Joseph were probably teenagers when they traveled to Bethlehem, for in first century Jewish culture girls were usually engaged around the age of 12 or 13 and boys around 16 or 17. The two were undoubtedly exhausted from their long journey when they arrived at the inn, but all the rooms were taken. The two decided to bed down with the animals in the inn’s stable, which must have been an act of utter desperation (was Mary beginning to have contractions?). They really had no choice, since the possibility of Mary giving birth in public was (especially in first century Jewish culture) completely unthinkable.
Plus, an early church tradition tells us that the stable was a cave, a suggestion many scholars find plausible. So the young, unwed mother and her fiancé make their way to this cave, which was probably animal-packed if the inn was full. We should probably imagine these two exhausted and desperate teenagers squeezing past livestock, stepping over animal droppings, making their way to a corner of an unventilated, smelly, dimly lit cave so Mary can have her baby with some degree of privacy.
Suddenly the manger scene is beginning to look a bit less cute and quaint.
Now try to imagine what the actual process of giving birth might have been like. Even with the best preparation and medical assistance, the birthing process is painful, “messy” and, at times, terrifying. Yet, Mary and Joseph would have had little preparation, and likely no medical assistance. They were alone.
When the child was born, they placed him in a manger – which in this context can only refer to a trough the animals ate or drank from. This certainly couldn’t have been their first choice! It’s hard to imagine anyone remaining calm and serene given these circumstances.
If even half of these assumptions are accurate, they suggest a nativity scene that was much less cute and quaint than what we traditionally picture. We should imagine two desperate, exhausted teenagers passed out on bloody, manure-filled hay in a crowded, smelly, dark cave while their baby sleeps – and sometimes wails – in a slimy feeding trough. The original audiences of the Gospels would probably have imagined something like this, and it would have shocked them. I believe this is a central point of the story.
Our God uses his almighty power to dive into the worst this world has to offer. He dives into the shame of an unwed Jewish mother. He dives into the rejection of an already-full inn and the darkness, odor and inconvenience of an overcrowded stable. He dives into the desperation and fear of a young, ostracized couple. He dives into our humanity; and not humanity at our best, but humanity at our worst. He’s not a God who gravitates toward the cute and the quaint, but a God who immerses himself in our mess, our manure, our pain, our fear, our sin and our shame.
He is a God who takes on himself everything that is shockingly ugly and redeems it all – and by doing so, he reveals himself to be a God who’s shockingly loving and beautiful.
This Christmas if you set up a nativity scene, don’t worry too much about what it looks like. There’s a place for tradition, and I doubt many stores sell “realistic” manure-filled caves to put on your end table! But remember that our God isn’t cute and quaint. He is a God who’s beautiful because he takes on our shocking ugliness and lovingly transforms us.
And I’ll take that Christmas story over cute and quaint any day.
Why Veganism is Much Better for the Climate than Recycling
What is the most effective thing you can do as an individual to counteract climate change? According to a new opinion poll from Kantar Public, most westerners don’t know the true answer. Not only that – they believe the exact opposite of what is true.
According to residents of ten western countries, including the United States, Germany, and Sweden, recycling is the most common answer to what is “very important” for improving the climate, while reduced consumption and reduced meat consumption are the least common answers. Even reduced car use and flying were rarely described as very important by the respondents.
This is almost as if most people would walk around thinking that the most effective thing they can do to cross the Atlantic Ocean is to travel with a bamboo raft.
Four years ago, a study was published at Lund University that showed which individual life choices lead to the greatest reduction in one’s greenhouse gas emissions. It states that a year’s plant-free diet free of animal products is four times more efficient than recycling, refraining from a single transatlantic flight is eight times more efficient and living car-free for a year is eleven times more efficient.
Recycling may be useful, but it can certainly not be classified as the most important climate measure. Why then do most westerners claim that this is the case? Lobbying from the meat, car and aerospace industries is, of course, a culprit in the drama, as is the political rhetoric that, for fear of losing votes, often unscientifically insists that we maintain our food and transport habits.
But the study from Kantar also showed that an important factor is convenience. 74 percent of those surveyed said they were “proud” of what they are already doing for the climate—which I guess includes a lot of recycling. Instead of finding out what actually saves lives, you tell yourself and others that what you are already doing is the best possible.
We often assume that people first become convinced of things on an intellectual level, and then adapt their lifestyle accordingly. Sometimes it is so – I myself became an environmental activist after I had read about the state of the world in books – but it is at least as common that our opinions are adapted to how we live and what social contexts we belong to.
No wonder Jesus insisted that his disciples follow him, rather than just believing on a theoretical level.
Of course, opinion formation still has an important role to play, especially when it is now so clear that even many who are not climate threat deniers believe in ill-founded myths. But people need to be doers of the word, not just hearers, to quote the letter of James.
What is needed are communities where plant-based diets and car-free lives are as common and natural as recycling cardboard packaging. Research shows that people find it much easier to change their lifestyle when they do it in groups.
Here, the churches have a fantastic opportunity to step forward as such norm-changing communities. Just imagine what would happen if the world’s two billion Christians decided to live sustainably tomorrow.
Climate change would literally be over in just a day. So what are we waiting for?
Kenneth Copeland Wants Money to Buy a Fourth Private Jet – Or Else Jesus Doesn’t Return
The prosperity preaching televangelist and multimillionaire Kenneth Copeland has stirred a lot of controversy lately. He tried to blow away the coronavirus, was one of the first pastors to deny that Joe Biden won the election (in an extremely bizarre way) and now he is begging people who are millions of dollars poorer than him for a new private jet.
Now, if you’re familiar with Copeland you know that he already has a private jet. In fact, he has three. He stores them at an airport called Kenneth Copeland Airport, right next to his million-dollar mansion in Texas.
The motivation he recently gave at the extremist Christian show Flashpoint is that he can’t fly commercial because he refuses to get vaccinated for Covid and many airlines require vaccination these days. “That’s the mark of the Beast”, he said.
This is clearly not the real reason Kenny is begging for your money, as there are several airlines in the US that does not require vaccination (even though it definitely can be argued that they should), and we know that Copeland argued against flying commercial long before the pandemic in order to motivate his love for private jets. Then, the reason was that that commercial planes are “tubes full of demons“.
The real reason Copeland is acting like this is, I think, that his self-worth is in those jets, they communicate success to himself and to a huge part of his audience. Practically, he doesn’t need four private planes any more than you and me, but on an existential and spiritual level he they are like oxygen to him. He is terrified of the thought of not being able to buy luxuries and status objects with other people’s money, since he himself has been preaching for decades that such a lifestyle is the ultimate evidence that God is with you.
It is just as the apostle Paul expressed it thousands of years ago:
“Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But you, man of God, flee from all this!” – 1 Timothy 6: 9-11
Kenneth Copeland is stuck in this trap of wealth, and it is consuming him. Like most other preachers, he has likely lost a lot of income during the pandemic—he warned his audience early on that even if they lose their jobs, they should continue tithing.
I’m guessing most of them didn’t.
And as Kenny has become one of the primary laughing stocks on the internet due to his bizarre statements and performances, he has a hard time attracting a younger audience. His empire is crumbling, and it destroys his self-worth.
That is why his friend Jesse Duplantis lied about how gifts to Copeland’s will “speed up” Jesus’ return. In their world, that’s true. Now, I’m not defending this craziness. It is unbiblical, catastrophic spiritual abuse. But my point is that these men are broken, afraid and have plunged themselves into ruin and destruction, and they’re so addicted to their wealth that they think that only more wealth can solve their problem.
We need to pray for them, for healing and repentence. But whatever you do, don’t give these millionaires more money. That’s just like handing a bag of cocaine over to a drug addict.
“Kill them all, and let God sort them out” – Why Evangelicals’ Reaction to 9/11 Went so Wrong
20 years ago, Al Qaida killed 3,000 civilians through terror and fire. That was a horrifying, indefensible act of violence.
In response, the USA started two wars that have killed 70,000 civilians in Afghanistan and 200,000 (!) in Iraq. Thousands of them were children.
That was also a horrifying, indefensible act of violence.
Shane Claiborne is an activist and theologian who had wise things to say concerning the violent aftermath of 9/11. From his book The Irresistible Revolution (2nd edition, pp. 185-187):
When Kingdoms Collide
Shortly after September 11th, I traveled to speak to a large congregation in the Midwest. (And no, it wasn’t Willow Creek.) Before I got up to preach, a military color guard presented the US flagat the altar. The choir filed in one-by-one, dressed in red white, and blue, with the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” playing in the background. I knew I was in big trouble. The congregation pledged allegiance to the flag, and I wished it were all a dream. It wasn’t. I got up to speak, thankful I was standing behind a large podium lest anyone try to pelt me with a pew Bible. I went forward to preach the truth in love with my knees knocking and managed to make it out okay with a bunch of hugs and a few feisty letters.
This is a dramatic (though painfully true) illustration of the messy collision of Christianity and patriotism that has rippled across our land. I thought this was an exceptional and dramatic example, but l’ve had same zingers since this. I spoke at a military academy where they had a full-on procession of military vehicles and weaponry. They fired cannons and saluted the flag, and then I got up to speak. I felt compelled to speak on the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control), the things Scripture says God is like and we should hope to be more like.
I talked about how the fruit of the Spirit take training and discipline and are not always cultivated by the culture around us. Afterward, one young soldier came up to me, nearly in tears, and told me that as he heard the list of the fruit of the Spirit, it became clear to him that these were not the things he was being trained to become. We prayed together, and I think of him often. I know that young man is not alone.
I saw a banner hanging next to city hall in downtown Philadelphia that read, “Kill them all, and let God sort them out.” A bumper sticker read, “God will judge evildoers, We just have to get them to him.” I saw a T-shirt on a sold’ that said, “US Air Force … we don’t die; we just go to hell to regroup.” Others were less dramatic-red, white, and blue billboards saying, “God bless our troops.” “God bless America” became a marketing strategy. One store hung an ad in their window that said, “God bless America–$1 burgers.”
Patriotism was everywhere, including in our altars and church buildings. In the aftermath of September 11th, most Christian bookstores had a section with books on the event, calendars, devotionals, buttons, all decorated in the colors of America, draped in stars and stripes, and sprinkled with golden eagles.
This burst of nationalism reveals the deep longing we all have for community, a natural thirst for intimacy that liberals and progressive Christians would have done much better to acknowledge. September 11th shattered the self-sufficient, autonomous individual, and we saw a country of broken fragile people who longed for community–for people to cry with, be angry with, to suffer with. People did not want to be alone in their sorrow, rage, and fear.
But what happened after September 11th broke my heart. Conservative Christians rallied around the drums of war. Liberal Christians took to the streets … Many Christians missed the opportunity to validate both the horror of September 11th and outrage at war as a response to September 11th.
In the aftermath of September 11th, many congregations missed the chance to bear witness of God’s concern for the victims of the attack and God’s concern for the victims of the imminent war. Many of us hunkered down into familiar camps rather than finding a more creative way of standing with all who suffer. Many of the antiwar activists would do well to visit the memorial in NYC. And many of the war hawks would do well to visit the Ameriyah shelter in West Baghdad. Every life lost is reason for grief and outrage.
The cross was smothered by the flag and trampled under the feet of angry protesters. The church community was lost, so the many hungry seekers found community in the civic religion of American patriotism. People were hurting and crying out for healing, for salvation in the best sense of the word, as in the salve with which you dress a wound.
A people longing for a savior placed their faith in the fragile hands of human logic and military strength, which have always let us down. They have always fallen short of the glory of God.
Shane Claiborne is a Red Letter Christian and a founding partner of The Simple Way community, a radical faith community that lives among and serves the homeless in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. He is the co-author, with Chris Haw, of Jesus for President. His newest book is Executing Grace: Why It is Time to Put the Death Penalty to Death.
The Only American Who Prophesied that Trump Would Lose the Election
While over 25 American Christian leaders prophesied that Trump would win the 2020 presidential election, only one predicted the opposite. It turns out that he has been involved with Bethel Church in Redding – and he’s not very happy with how prophecy is being misused these days.
His name is Eric Rossoni and I got to speak with him a couple of months ago. He actually used to support Donald Trump and was convinced in 2016 that God was using him. But when the Stormy Daniels scandal blew up and almost no Christian leader condemned the president for sleeping with a porn star and paying hush money to hide his sin, Eric realized that something was terribly wrong with the Christian Trump movement.
In 2020, he received a prophetic word that Trump would lose, something he also wrote about on Twitter (several hours before the election results were announced):
Eric seems to be the only American prophet who got the election prediction right, but he’s not the only one worldwide. Nigerian pastor and self-proclaimed apostle Johnson Suleman also prophesied that Trump would lose back in March 2020. However, he viewed it as a tragedy, while Eric Rossoni is thankful that Trump isn’t president anymore.
Eric is convinced that Trump has revealed the hearts of many Christians, and it’s not pretty. He hopes that Christians should abstain from strongly aligning with political parties and leaders even as we try to make the world a better place.
In order to remain politically and prophetically sharp, the church must avoid Trumpism at all costs.
Can We Please Stop Treating the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Like A Sports Event?
Originally posted at PCPJ.
Once again, the Holy Land has been struck by war.
I feel compelled to write something that I wish nobody should have to write, something that should be obvious to everyone but which for some ill-conceived reason can be controversial to state in certain contexts:
War is awful.
Hamas firing on and killing the Israeli civilian population is awful.
The counterattacks by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) killing Palestinian civilians are awful.
War has no winners, there is no one to “cheer” on as if it were a sports event, there is no victory in war that does not come at the price of hating, tormenting and killing your fellow human beings.
Take a look at these pictures.
The upper image shows an apartment in Israel that was hit by one of Hamas’ rockets a few weeks ago. Five-year-old Ido Avigal, pictured to the right, lived in that apartment. He died immediately.
The picture below shows a girl being rescued by medical personnel after an Israeli attack in Gaza. The attack destroyed nine buildings and killed 43 people, including eight children.
In total, 68 children have been killed in the Holy Land these last couple of weeks. 66 of them were Palestinian.
All of this is awful. It’s sickening.
I honestly can’t understand those who are either trying to portray Hamas’ rocket attacks as a legitimate “freedom struggle” or the Israeli excessive violence as a legitimate “self-defense.” It’s madness on both sides.
They all kill children. I repeat: THEY KILL CHILDREN.
Of course, some will say: “Yes, but the children that my favorite team kills are really the other team’s fault because they use all the children who happen to die as human shields”.
Can’t you hear how crazy that sounds?
Sure, human shields are being used in this conflict both by Hamas and by the IDF, but many of these children have nothing to do with the warring parties. For example, five of the 66 Palestinian children who were killed by IDF attacks were sons and daughters of an employee of the Danish organization DanChurchAid.
They had nothing to do with Hamas or the war. They were just children living in Gaza and now they are dead because war is awful.
Thankfully, the violence has currently ended in a ceasefire, but it’s a fragile one. Please pray that peace negotiations are reactivated and that both sides lay down their weapons for good.
We know for a fact that more rockets from Hamas won’t end the occupation, because it has never worked so far. We also know for a fact that IDF bombing Gaza doesn’t end the Hamas’ rocket attacks, because it has never worked so far.
We don’t need people cheering on either side of the conflict as if the killing were some kind of a football game. We need peace. Even those who do not follow Jesus need to realize the wisdom and power of loving their enemies. And that love means that we cannot rejoice in anyone’s death.
God lets the sun shine on the righteous and the unrighteous, he wants us not only to love those who love us but to break the spiral of violence by reaching out to those who hate us. That’s the only way forward.
The author
Micael Grenholm, a Swedish charismactivist, apologist and author.
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