I did not die so that you could defeat, steal from, kill and destroy your enemies. I died so that you would love them as I loved you while you were My enemies.
What do you want, My children?
Do you want Me and My kingdom or do you want Barabbas and what he fought and killed for? You cannot have both.
Woe! Woe! Woe! My people are choosing Barabbas, following him, and teaching his ways! They reject Me for another ‘Jesus’!
Turn, My people! Turn from your ways and be saved! For the path you are choosing leads only to death!
I give life through the Cross —not through the sword! If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword.
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Ramone Romero is an artist based in Osaka, Japan.
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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!
(art: “The Release of Barabbas” and “Follow the Lamb”, by Ramone Romero)
It’s been 22 years since the September 11th attacks. It’s an important day to remember how precious life is… and to stand against violence in every form.
On the 10th anniversary I teamed up with my pal Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, and we did an event called “Jesus, Bombs, and Ice Cream” which featured Terry Rockefeller from September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. She, and so many other victims of 9/11 are heroes of mine. These survivors of 9/11 declared:
“Our Grief Is NOT a Cry for War” — and became some of the most credible, passionate voices against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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I often wonder how the world might be different if our response to the tragedy of 9/11 had not been more violence — war and retaliation. Nearly 3000 lives were lost here in the US. And it is now estimated that over 1,455,000 lives have been lost in the aftermath of 9/11. Not many of us feel any safer. And it is quite clear that our violence has done more to fuel the fire of extremism than to stop it.
We now know that 15 of the 19 terrorists on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia… yet Iraq and Afghanistan have now been decimated by our response to 9/11. And the US continues to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia.
Lord, help us.
I hope that September 11 becomes a day when we lament all violence, and move forward with a renewed conviction that violence will not rid the world of violence. Violence is the disease, not the cure.
Lord, guide us in the path of peace.
“Don’t repay anyone evil for evil… but overcome evil with good.” –The Bible, Romans 12
Donald Trump has now been found liable by a jury for sexual assault and must pay over five million dollars for assaulting E. Jean Carroll in a clothing store in 1996. However, she is far from the only one who has testified that Trump has committed assaults:
Jessica Leeds has recounted that Trump touched her breasts and ran his hand up under her skirt in the early 1980s.
Kristin Anderson has said that Trump reached under her skirt and touched her genitals in the early 1990s.
Jill Harth told how Trump repeatedly sexually harassed her and groped her under a table in 1993.
Temple Taggart McDowell, former Miss Utah, said that Trump kissed her directly on the lips the first time she met him in 1997.
Cathy Heller said Trump grabbed her and tried to kiss her at Trump’s luxury resort Mar-a-Lago in 1997.
Karena Virginia recounted that Trump groped her during the US Open golf tournament in 1998.
Mindy McGillivray said Trump groped her while she was at a concert at Mar-a-Lago in 2003.
Rachel Crooks said she was assaulted by Trump in an elevator at Trump Tower in 2005.
Natasha Stoynoff recounted that Trump pushed her against a wall and stuck his tongue far down her throat at Mar-a-Lago in 2005.
Jennifer Murphy, a participant in Trump’s TV show The Apprentice, said Trump kissed her on the lips after a job interview in 2005.
Ninni Laaksonen, former Miss Finland, told how “Trump was standing right next to me and suddenly squeezed my buttocks” in July 2006 when they were backstage to appear on The Late Show.
Jessica Drake told how Trump grabbed her and kissed her without consent, and then offered her $10,000 for sex in 2006.
Summer Zervos, another participant in The Apprentice, told how Trump started kissing her, touched her breasts, and pressed his groin against her in 2007.
Cassandra Searles, a model who participated in Miss USA, which Trump owned, told how he grabbed her buttocks and invited her to his hotel room in 2013.
Last but not least:
Donald Trump himself boasted in 2005 to his friend Billy Bush about how he usually assaults women by “grabbing them by the pussy” and getting away with it because he is so famous, and how he, for the same reason, usually has sex with married women.
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Isn’t Trump innocent until proven guilty? Legally, absolutely – he cannot be punished solely based on accusations – but that is not the same as saying that all these women are liars until proven otherwise. Especially not when Trump is a proven liar with this verdict (and according to his own words when he thought no one but Billy Bush could hear him).
The fact that many Americans, including many Christians, now openly express their continued support and defense for the sex offender Trump after the guilty verdict is sheer madness.
It was only 25 years ago when the Souther Baptist Convention passed their “Resolution on Moral Character of Public Officials”, which states: “Some journalists report that many Americans are willing to excuse or overlook immoral or illegal conduct by unrepentant public officials so long as economic prosperity prevails. […] Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment.”
If white evangelicals in the US want to be viewed as anything else than immoral, misogynistic hypocrites, they need to abandon the Trump train immediately. The fact that they’ve been on it for seven years is disastrous in and of itself, but to save whatever integrity they have left, now is the time to repent.
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!
Yesterday, Donald Trump was indicted for having paid over a hundred thousand dollars to the porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their sexual encounter shortly after his wife Melania gave birth to their son Barron. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen admitted to the crime, calling it a “sex scandal of biblical proportions” and admitting that it was done on Trump’s orders.
The millions of (white) evangelical Christians who still support Trump also do not seem to care about his infidelity with porn stars and other women. In fact, after the infamous video where Trump boasted about committing sexual assault (“grab them by the pussy”) and sleeping with married women was released, he became more popular among white evangelicals.
This is largely due to the fact that many white evangelicals value traditional patriarchal masculinity, as historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez shows in her book Jesus and John Wayne. While they verbally condemn sexual assault and infidelity, it is something many evangelical men engage in themselves and are quite impressed by, and women are taught to accept sexual assault and rape in popular evangelical books about marriage and relationships. The book The Great Sex Rescue goes through this in detail and shows that evangelicals who have a so-called “complementarian” view of women and men have significantly worse marriages that often lead to divorce.
These statistics show beyond any reasonable doubt that the white evangelical endorsement of Trump has radically changed their values. In 2011, over 60 percent of them said that an elected official who commits an immoral act in their private life cannot behave ethically in their public life. In the Trump era, this conviction remains among less than 20 percent. Falwell Jr. and other evangelical leaders have convinced millions of Christians that a good character simply isn’t relevant when it comes to leadership, despite there being hundreds of verses in the Scriptures that suggest otherwise.
Civilization originally arose in the Middle East, but now it might disappear from the region. The waves of refugees we see today are tiny compared to the hundreds of millions of climate refugees that the coming decades risk bringing with them.
Isn’t it ironic that many evangelicals claim to care deeply about the nation and people of Israel, yet ignore how climate change might destroy the nation and people of Israel? A survey from 2014 showed that white evangelicals in the US are the least likely to be concerned over climate change.
There is no biblical reason for this. The Bible never says that climate change isn’t real or should not be prevented. The only reason white evangelicals think like this is that they view allegiance to the Republican party as important, which in turn has been highly influenced by science denial promoted by the fossil fuel industry with millions of dollars.
And so in a disturbing twist of fate, many evangelicals support extremist politicians like Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro claiming that they are “pro-Israel”, when in fact their policies might be what ultimately destroys Israel as a nation. Once again. these words written by Jeremiah 2,600 years ago, might be sung in Jerusalem:
“The old men are no longer gathered in the city gate, and the young men’s music has ceased. Joy is gone from our hearts, our dance has turned to sorrow … Mount Zion lies desolate, jackals roam about there. But you, Lord, reign forever “Your throne is from generation to generation.” (Lamentations 5)
But not on our watch. The good news is that the catastrophic scenario of an empty Middle East is still preventable, given that we manage to adjust our lifestyle and our communities to sustainability and a fossil-free reality during the coming eight years. We need help to do this – from each other and from God.
There is still time to act, so let’s act!
Micael Grenholm is a Swedish pastor, author, and 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!
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.
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!
Nationalism lies at the heart of the Old Testament narrative. This concept is intimately wrapped up with the law-oriented covenant God made with the Israelites at Mount Sinai, for at the heart of this covenant is the promise that obedience would bring national security while disobedience would bring national disaster (Deut. 27-28).
What we shall now see is that the nation-centered portrait of God in the OT is also a mask that our humble, incarnational God condescended to wear. This correlates with the Principle of Cruciform Accommodation that I introduce in Crucifixion of the Warrior God.
To grasp the nature of this concept, we first need to appreciate how intense Jewish nationalism had become around the time of Christ. Jews had been oppressively ruled by pagan nations for centuries and was at this time lorded over by the Romans. The longing to see Israel restored to the “glory days” of King David was at a fever pitch. Many believed this restoration would happen when an anointed descendent of David would lead Israel in a violent uprising to overthrow their pagan oppressors.
This was not only a yearning for political autonomy; it was, much more importantly, a yearning for theodicy. The fact that God’s chosen nation was being ruled by pagans in their own Promised Land was for many an assault on the distinctive Jewish claim that Yahweh was the one true God and the Lord of all the earth.
An article recently appeared in the Christian Post entitled, “Why is the country moving left? The social gospel”. In this article, Nathan Cherry argues that the American church and society has moved to the “left” as a result of mainline churches embracing what is known as the “Social Gospel”. He also states that the Social Gospel is a “reimagining” or “replacement” for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Mr. Cherry says:
Many years ago, mainline Protestant churches began to embrace what is now understood as the social gospel. This reimagined understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ centered on social and economic equality, as well as racial reconciliation and poverty. This new gospel replaced the atoning work of Christ on the cross for the sins of people with a politically charged version of the gospel in which correcting social ills was the highest good and ultimate goal.
I want to offer a brief rebuttal to Mr. Cherry’s article. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has and will always be partially political or social, and the Social Gospel is not a replacement for the Gospel.
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.
Micael Grenholm is a Swedish pastor, author, and 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!
It’s midnight. There’s a knock on the door. You yell that you are coming to open it in hopes that the soldiers don’t blow it open. Moments later, dozens of soldiers invade your house. Your children wake to masked soldiers with guns pointed directly at them, yelling in a language your children don’t understand. They force your family into one room and tear your house apart without explanation. This is the reality that many families have faced across the West Bank.
Night raids are one of the most devastating acts of the Israeli military occupation in the West Bank. The violent raids occur between midnight and 5 AM, often without the families getting an explanation. According to the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling, 1,360 night raids are executed every year, the majority within 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) of a settlement or near roads that settlers frequent.
PCPJ 
