Economic Justice, Nonviolence

Why are these Christians denying that children are starving in Gaza?

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Children are starving in Gaza, with many being malnourished and some losing their hair and will to live.

The image above were taken by the BBC and the one below by the AP. They show five-month-old Siwar and two-year-old Mayar, both severely malnourished due to the food shortage in Gaza.

Worsening hunger in Gaza has sparked global condemnation and intense diplomatic pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow humanitarian aid to reach the over 2 million people trapped in the territory, after aid had been entirely blocked for more than two months in violation of human rights.

On Sunday evening, Netanyahu said the blockade would be lifted, acknowledging that a growing “starvation crisis” was beginning to harm Israel’s international reputation. He said that he would allow a “minimal” amount of aid due to “diplomatic reasons“. According to the UN, the aid Israel now allows is far from sufficient.

Blocking all emergency aid for over two months so that children starve, become malnourished and are forced to eat garbage is a crime against humanity and never, ever okay. Hamas is a terrible terrorist organization that has committed many other crimes against humanity. But forcing children to starve is a crime against humanity and the unauthorized use of starvation as a weapon of war no matter how terrible Hamas is. It is not something that can be done.

It is always wrong to let children starve, and therefore it was wrong for Netanyahu’s government to deliberately and systematically refuse to let in emergency aid so that children began to starve. That doesn’t excuse the crimes Hamas commits, just as Hamas’ crimes are also no excuse for Netanyahu letting children starve.

Yair Golan, head of the opposition Democratic Party and a former deputy chief of the Israeli military, criticized the government’s conduct. He argued that the military campaign had been excessively violent and that much of the harm was already irreversible.

Speaking to Reshet Bet radio, Golan compared Israel’s growing international isolation to that of apartheid-era South Africa.

“A sane country doesn’t engage in fighting against civilians, doesn’t kill babies as a hobby and doesn’t set the expulsion of a population as a goal,” he said.

Over 15,000 children have now died in Gaza, according to Save the Children.

Still, this past week, Christians who support Israel’s war in Gaza have said and written to me:

  • That no children have died in Gaza.
  • That there is no famine in Gaza.
  • That there is famine in Gaza, but you mustn’t talk about it because that’s exactly what Hamas wants.
  • That there is famine in Gaza, but Israel has not blocked food shipments there for over two months.
  • That Israel has blocked food shipments to Gaza for over two months, which has led to famine—but it’s still entirely Hamas’ fault.
  • That Israel has blocked food shipments to Gaza, and that’s completely justified since Israel has no responsibility to feed Gaza’s civilian population, even after the Israeli army destroyed 70 percent of all agricultural land in Gaza.
  • That starving Palestinians are just “reaping what they’ve sown.”
  • That God wants the Palestinian people to be wiped out just like certain nations were exterminated in the Old Testament.

This is insane. It’s as if one has to live in a parallell reality in order to defend Israeli war crimes. Or blatantly support war crimes and genocidal rhetoric, calling for Palestinians to be “wiped out” upfront.

What would Jesus do?

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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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!

Spirituality

The abysmal failures of Chris Reed as a prophetic prognosticator

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I will test “Forty Prophecies for 2023 and Beyond”, by Chris Reed, published on Morningstar Ministries web site December 29, 2022. One reason I chose this word is the fact that I do not need to do the compiling myself. Usually, specific predictions are spread out across several messages and intertwined with non-predictive utterances. Another reason is the clearly defined time-frame. Even though the heading says “2023 and beyond”, the contents for almost every prediction makes the 2024 election the upper boundary for them to apply.

The so-called prophetic predictions were published on the Morningstar website December 28 2022.

The TL;DR version is simple. Reed failed spectacularly. These are clearly not words from the Lord but emanate from his fleshly wishes.

I know that Reed has been disgraced. He has been caught faking prophetic revelations, using social media and other investigative methods to emulate “words of knowledge”. He has also been caught using the prophetic to manipulate women to have sex with him. However, the predictions are still online at Morningstar Ministries, and they provide valuable insight into how the prophetic work in these circles – or rather what a mess it has become!

Continue reading The abysmal failures of Chris Reed as a prophetic prognosticator →
Creation Care, Economic Justice, Spirituality

Francis, the Pope Who Combined Charismatic Spirituality with Peace and Justice

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Pope Francis has departed this earthly life, leaving behind a legacy of uniting signs and wonders with peace and justice! He was both the most charismatic and activist pope the Catholic Church has had in hundreds of years.

In truth, this shouldn’t be an unusual combination – Jesus Himself united pacifism and economic equality with healing the sick and performing miracles. But in our time, there is often a dividing line between Christians passionate about peace and justice and those who emphasize the gifts of the Spirit. For Francis, however, all of this was one and the same.

Few have missed that Francis is a passionate advocate for peace and justice: he has criticized capitalism for neglecting the poor, he lives simply and promotes economic equality, he has prayed for peace in the Middle East both at the Western wall and at the West Bank wall. But what not as many know is that Francis also is a charismatic pope, who believes in Spiritual gifts and who blesses both the Catholic charismatic renewal and Pentecostals.

I have previously written about how Francis stated in an interview that the charismatic movement is necessary for the church. In 2014, pope Francis attended a Catholic charismatic renewal convention in Rome, where he said:

I expect from you that you share with all, in the Church, the grace of Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

I expect from you an evangelization with the Word of God which proclaims that Jesus is alive and loves all men.

I expect that you give witness of spiritual ecumenism with all those brothers and sisters of other Churches and Christian communities who believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

[…]

Be close to the poor, the needy, to touch in their flesh the flesh of Jesus. Be close, please!

Later the same year, Francis visited a Pentecostal church, being the first pope ever to do that. He asked for forgiveness for the hostility that some Catholics has shown to Pentecostals:

“Among those who persecuted and denounced Pentecostals, almost as if they were crazy people trying to ruin the race, there were also Catholics. I am the pastor of Catholics, and I ask your forgiveness for those Catholic brothers and sisters who didn’t know and were tempted by the devil.”

 “Someone will be surprised: ‘The pope went to visit the evangelicals?’ But he went to see his brothers.”

Similarly to the saint from which he took his name, Francis of Assisi, pope Francis loved the poor and experienced amazing miracles. Even if there are many things I don’t agree with when it comes to Catholic theology, I truly rejoice when I see how pope Francis walks in the same tradition, following Jesus both when it comes to Spiritual baptism and social justice.

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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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!

Nonviolence

Israeli Soldiers Say They Were Ordered to Kill Civilians and Children in Gaza

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Israeli soldiers are now speaking out about how they have been ordered to kill men, women, and children in Gaza because “no one counts as a civilian,” “everyone is a terrorist.” They have created a “kill zone” that covers a third of all Gaza’s farmland, where every building has been destroyed and every Palestinian is shot at—for instance, when they come to collect food.

These are some of the most horrifying war stories I have ever read. Just a few weeks ago I heard a Pentecostal pastor claim that Israel does everything it can to avoid civilian casualties and that the International Criminal Court’s charge that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested for war crimes should not be taken seriously.

But Israeli soldiers themselves say this is happening. Their accounts appear in a report by Breaking the Silence—an Israeli organization founded by combat veterans—and are corroborated by The Guardian, which conducted its own interviews. The existence of the kill zone—where virtually every building has been razed—can also be confirmed by satellite imagery.

These are very real war crimes.

One soldier, Yotam Vilk, recounts how they were ordered to shoot every Palestinian who entered the kill zone. He personally saw twelve people killed, including a teenage boy.

A sergeant in the Israeli army said they were told to kill every man who entered the zone, while women and children were to be driven away with tank fire. Different units seem to have had different rules. One captain said that every person who entered the kill zone “was considered a threat and sentenced to death,” regardless of whether it was a woman or a child.

Another captain described how the pain of Hamas’s horrific terror attack on 7 October 2023 made Israeli soldiers want to inflict the same pain in return:

“[We] set out on this war out of insult, out of pain, out of anger, out of the sense that we had to succeed. This distinction [between civilians and terrorist infrastructure], it didn’t matter. Nobody cared. We decided on a line … past which everyone is a suspect.”

“A lot of us went there, I went there, because they killed us and now we’re going to kill them. And I found out that we’re not only killing them – we’re killing them, we’re killing their wives, their children, their cats, their dogs. We’re destroying their houses and pissing on their graves.”

Hate breeds more hate, violence breeds more violence. Hamas’s heinous terror attack does not justify Israeli shelling of civilians. There are no winners, no “good” armies in this dreadful war. Let us stand on the side of peace and life in this terrible conflict.

Economic Justice, Nonviolence, Politics, Spirituality

Make America Christian Again

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Since the early 1980s, with the rise of the Moral Majority Movement and the Religious Right, much of the American political and cultural landscape has been dominated by a very specific type of Christian, commonly known as conservative evangelicals (though I think this is a misnomer).

This wing of the Church has successfully taken over much of American media – including radio, television, and the Internet. They have successfully lobbied in politics at every level of government. They were a major force behind the elections of several presidents – Ronald Reagan, both George Bushes, and now Donald Trump. Their version of Christianity and its connections with power and money are all throughout American society. Even in the small town where I grew up, I was once active in a conservative evangelical church in which pamphlets were handed out instructing their congregants how to vote, and I recall another instance at another local church in which the local Republican Party came by for signatures after worship.

This partnership between American big business, politics, and conservative churches seems like it has always been the case. For many of us, the last 40 years feel like a lifetime (and as someone born in the early 90s, it has been a lifetime). However, we must remember that this has not always been this way.

Continue reading Make America Christian Again →
Politics, Spirituality

Angels are not for sale, Paula White

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by Shane Claiborne.

I don’t have the bandwidth to respond to every absurd thing said by a TV preacher or televangelist or con artist. But this is an exception.

Paula White is not just a millionaire prosperity preacher. She is one of the most trusted Senior Advisors of President Trump and the newly appointed head of the White House Faith Office.

In this recent video she is promising miracles, superpowers, and even your own personal guardian angel… all for the low price of $1000.

You can’t make this stuff up. This is real. But it should not be normal.

Do NOT give this woman your money… she already has plenty. And if you already gave, please hold onto the receipt so you can get a refund.

Angels are not for sale.

I actually believe in angels, and miracles… but thanks be to God’s generous love, they are not for sale.

Trump-evangelicalism is a cult. It is dangerous, deceptive … and apparently very expensive. This heretical version of our faith does a lot of damage to true authentic Christianity as it distorts theology for the sake of wealth and power.

Rebuke it, in the name of Jesus. And don’t give Paula your money.

Angels are not for sale.

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. He has also written Executing Grace: Why It is Time to Put the Death Penalty to Death.

Politics

Trump is Acting Quickly to Become a Dictator

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Things are rapidly deteriorating in the US—Trump has effectively declared himself the totalitarian ruler of the United States, claiming he does not need to follow any laws after making several illegal decisions in just a few weeks that are undermining American democracy.

While we are rightfully outraged by Trump’s outbursts—such as his claim that Ukraine started the war against Russia or his refusal to rule out military action to seize Greenland—it is crucial not to be so distracted by these outrageous statements that we fail to notice how, according to many scholars, he is currently engaged in an authoritarian coup.

Trump and his billionaire friend Elon Musk have, in recent weeks, fired thousands of government employees and shut down everything from cancer research to food distribution in Sudan, amounting to billions in aid, in ways that violate the law. Just as in Sweden, it is the parliament that controls the budget and enacts laws, and the president cannot override this. That is why several American judges have recently ruled that Trump has broken the law and must reverse his decisions, which has sent Trump into a rage.

After quoting the dictator Napoleon on social media with the words: “He who saves his country breaks no law,” Trump has now issued an executive order declaring that only he can “determine what the law is.” Or, as Napoleon’s dictatorial predecessors might have put it: “I am the state.” Trump and Musk have also threatened one of the judges who ruled against them with impeachment, and Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, has stated that judges are not allowed to rule that the president is acting unlawfully.

In reality, it is precisely the judges’ duty to do so! But Trump is now moving quickly to ensure that he can act as illegally as he wants without consequences, like an autocrat, creating a constitutional crisis in the largest country of the Western world.

Among other actions, Trump has fired 17 experienced government watchdogs, known as “inspectors general,” whose long-standing role has been to uncover waste, fraud, and abuse within federal departments. These dismissals were carried out without providing Congress with the legally required 30-day advance notice and specific justifications for each case. The fact that the entire process was illegal does not bother Trump in the slightest, because, according to him, he alone determines what the law says, and no one can stop him from doing whatever he wants.

The fact that he is specifically firing government watchdogs clearly shows that the official justification for Trump and Musk’s dismantling of large parts of the state apparatus—reducing waste and abuse—is not true at all. The destruction of the state apparatus is instead being carried out in tandem with Trump firing everyone in the Department of Justice who was investigating crimes against him and ordering the deletion of all evidence related to the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol—an attack carried out by his supporters to make him a dictator. He is now working tirelessly to achieve that goal—ignoring what the courts say because he considers himself above the law.

The United States has long been, in many ways, a deeply flawed, unequal, and problematic country, but I was not prepared for how quickly and easily its democratic foundations could collapse. Yet, this is precisely what Trump has always aimed for.

The good news is that no authoritarian regime can endure if the people refuse to comply. Research from Harvard University shows that if just four percent of a population engages in nonviolent resistance against an authoritarian regime, the regime almost always collapses. This is where all democratic forces must stand together—especially churches, which have a wealth of experience worldwide in resisting authoritarian regimes!

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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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!

Nonviolence, Spirituality

Fools for Christ: How to Respond to Un-Christ-Like Leaders 

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The day after every U.S. Presidential Inauguration, Washington National Cathedral (of the Episcopal Church) hosts an interfaith National Prayer Service. Normally, this event does not get a lot of attention. It is a mundane tradition of American civic religion. This year was different, however. 

            Bishop Mariann Budde delivered the homily for the service. In her homily, she took a few moments to remind President Trump of the importance of showing mercy to others, especially the most vulnerable and marginalized in our communities. Trump and his supporters responded to this homily by claiming that Bishop Budde was “politicizing” the faith. Trump specifically called her a “so-called Bishop” and “Radical Left hard line Trump hater”. He also demanded an apology from the bishop and the Episcopal Church. 

Continue reading Fools for Christ: How to Respond to Un-Christ-Like Leaders  →
Economic Justice

Evangelicals Urge Trump to Restore Aid to Christian Charities After He and Musk Slash Billions

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The mega-billionaires Donald Trump and Elon Musk have now shut down all aid to poor countries, effectively sentencing many Christian aid organizations to collapse. Elon Musk, currently the world’s richest person, wrote on Twitter that USAID “must die”, and he called out a Lutheran relief organization as “illegal.” Recently, he stated that Trump “agrees” that the entire agency should be dismantled—the only aid allowed to continue is military support.

Just a few years ago, xenophobic politicians had to argue that they still wanted to help the poor and vulnerable in order to justify their restrictions on refugee reception. They falsely claimed they would compensate for reduced refugee immigration with increased aid “in the local region.”

That never happened. And today’s xenophobic politicians don’t even bother with such lies—they are openly hostile to helping poor people, refusing to accept them as refugees or support them through aid.

Trump is shutting down nearly all foreign aid, hundreds of billions of dollars, while completely closing the country’s refugee intake—redirecting hundreds of billions toward mass deportations, sending people back to persecution and poverty and leaving millions of children orphaned in the US.

The entire USAID website has been shut down, along with several other government websites. Trump has ordered the removal of all websites mentioning climate change and a whole database containing evidence of the January 6th attack on the Capitol has been deleted. This is the largest case of state censorship in U.S. history, orchestrated by two criminal billionaires who ironically claim to champion “free speech.”

A majority of evangelical Christians in the U.S. voted for Trump, but now evangelical organizations and churches such as the National Association of Evangelicals and the Southern Baptist Convention are pleading with the Trump administration to restore funding for aid organizations like World Relief. Their pleas, however, are likely falling on deaf ears. Trump’s dismantling of public support for organizations helping refugees and the poor is not an accident—it is precisely what “America First” was always about.

Now, organizations are warning that HIV-positive individuals worldwide are losing access to life-saving medication, humanitarian operations are being abruptly halted, and millions of poor people are suffering even more than before.

Meanwhile, Trump has granted his billionaire friend Elon Musk access to large portions of the U.S. treasury, even though Congress—the very institution attacked by Trump supporters four years ago—is supposed to have the power of the purse. According to multiple experts, this is a clear sign of an authoritarian takeover designed to ensure Trump never loses power—something he himself has been shockingly open about.

It is encouraging, albeit somewhat late, that U.S. evangelicals are beginning to regret their support for Trump. Now, Christians in Europe must increase their efforts in missions and aid to compensate for the billions that Trump and Musk have cut from the poor. And we must pray—for the poor who are suffering and for the conversion of Trump’s and Musk’s hearts. Many lives are at stake!

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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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!

Sources:

Politics

It’s Extremely Clear Trump Wanted to become dictator on January 6

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Exactly four years ago, Trump and several of his supporters tried to overthrow American democracy by attacking the Capitol, following a two-month-long campaign in which Trump lied about winning the 2020 election.

Since then, it has been revealed how Trump pressured the Department of Justice and other Republican politicians to declare him the winner of the election. When that didn’t work, he incited his supporters in Washington on January 6, 2021: “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore!”

The mob marched towards the Capitol, and several shouted that they would kill Vice President Pence (who was considered a traitor) and Democratic politicians. Lawmakers fled in terror to their offices or bathrooms, many trying to contact Trump and beg him to stop the attack.

Trump, however, enthusiastically watched the attack unfold on TV and told his staff that he certainly had no intention of resigning. After the attack failed to overturn democracy, he of course resigned, but just two months later, Trump told Fox News that the mob were honorable patriots who should not be prosecuted. Over 460 people have been convicted for the crimes they committed that day.

Trump has also called the Capitol attack “a day of love” and promised to pardon those who participated in the attack. In two weeks, he will be sworn in again as president at the same legislature his supporters attacked. He was charged with attempting to overthrow democracy, but those charges are now being dropped as he is re-elected president. He has also appointed ministers who authored the authoritarian plan “Project 2025,” which in great detail describes how democracy should be undermined and the president’s power strengthened.

But no matter how dark Trump’s plans may be, there is someone more powerful than him and all other people. My hope is not in human kingdoms but in God’s kingdom. As the Bible says: “Do not trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save… The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the plans of the wicked.” – Psalm 146:3

Update January 21st:

In a single stroke, Donald Trump has pardoned nearly 1,600 individuals who stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to install him as a dictator—including hundreds who were imprisoned for violently attacking police.

Trump has never concealed his desire to stay in power—even after losing an election. If he had his way, he would have become a dictator in 2021.

The message is crystal clear: those who commit violence in Trump’s name, for Trump’s sake, can count on having the president—and the entire state—on their side.”

As I warned last fall, Trump is one of the most authoritarian and anti-democratic politicians the Western world has seen in decades. And yet, it is nothing short of catastrophic that so many Christians continue to see him as some kind of savior.

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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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!

Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice