100 years ago--The birth of false messiah Sun Myung Moon

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, Matthew 24:24a (also Mark 13:22a)

Rev. Sun Myung Moon was born in what is now North Korea on either January 6 or February 25, 1920, and was raised in a Confucianist family who converted to Christianity when he was a child. He was imprisoned in a North Korean labour camp in the late 1940s, but escaped to South Korea in 1950, his internment having hardened him in to a staunch anti-Communist.

In 1954, Rev. Moon formally founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity--popularly known as the Unification Church--in Seoul. He proclaimed that Jesus Christ was divine but no God, and had redeemed man spiritually, but because he hadn't married, had not therefore redeemed man physically. Rev. Moon taught that he and his second wife Hak Ja Han (he had previously been married and divorced) were humanity's "True Parents" who had come to link married families to God; the Unification Church became internationally known for its blessing ceremonies--often referred to as "mass weddings" for married couples.

Rev. Moon moved to the United States in 1971, retaining his South Korean citizenship, and founded numerous front organizations and sponsored conferences featuring high-profile speakers, some of whom claimed unawareness of the true identity of the sponsor. The Unification Church's members, derisively referred to as "Moonies," practiced the doctrine of "heavenly deception," meaning that it was permissible to lie in order to serve the interests of Rev. Moon and the Unification Church.

In 1982, Rev. Moon was convicted of conspiracy and filing false income tax returns in the United States, and served 13 months of an 18-month prison sentence. I remember reading reports at the time of his receiving support during his imprisonment from American evangelical leaders such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, but I don't remember reading that he received support from organizations such as the National Council of Churches, American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A. (the denomination that brought you such "Christians" as Tony Campolo and Ron Sider), National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus, and Southern Christian Leadership Conference. These groups have never been known for supporting the rights of Bible-believing Christians, which leads this blogger to regard their support for Rev. Moon as very suspicious. Rev. Moon also founded the Washington Times newspaper in 1982, using it to spread his views.

On March 23, 2004, Rev. Moon was honoured by a dozen members of the United States Congress in a ceremony at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, in which he delivered a speech reiterating his claim to be the Messiah. When news about the event was revealed three months later, some of the lawmakers present claimed to have been misled about the true nature of the ceremony when they accepted the invitation.

Rev. Moon appeared to be correct in predicting the eventual fall of Communism, but was very wrong in claiming to be the Messiah and the Second Coming of Christ. The true second coming of Christ will occur when the Lord Jesus Christ returns to Earth (see Matthew 24:30-31; Mark 13:26-27; Luke 21:27; Revelation 19:11-21). Rev. Moon died in South Korea on September 3, 2012 at the age of 92; he has been quiet since then, and is most likely still in his grave.

See also my posts:

Evangelicals and Moonies Together? (March 11, 2011)

30 years ago: 2,000 couples participate in Moonie mass wedding in New York (July 3, 2012)

40 years ago: California Court of Appeals rules in favour of Moonies against parents (April 11, 2017)

Silicon Valley billionaires search for immortality in this life

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. Genesis 3:4-5

And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.
And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:
And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?
And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. Luke 12:15-21

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: Hebrews 9:27

One of the reasons I believe the account given in Genesis 3 to be true is that the lies spoken by the serpent are the same lies that are so widely believed today. In contrast to the millennials mentioned in the post below, who are spending on themselves now because they have no hope for a prosperous future financially or otherwise, those who are doing very well financially are seeking ways to prolong their lives in order to continue enjoyment of their riches.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to reproduce the relevant article Money can't buy you love, but how about eternal life? by Chris Stokel-Walker in the London Daily Telegraph, October 14, 2019. However, if you have premium access to the paper, you can read it here. Otherwise, you can read it free here.

To see the sites of events and organizations and events mentioned in the article, click on the links:

RAAD Festival

The Church of Perpetual Life

SENS Research Foundation

It's interesting to note that The Church of Perpetual Life, while rejecting an eternal and heavenly perspective, refers to itself as a church:

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. II Timothy 3:5

See also my post "Immortalist" Robert Ettinger, "Father of Cryonics," falls a little short of immortality in this life (July 27, 2011)

"Jesus Shoes" cashes in on greed and superstition

More evidence that you can't be a satirist anymore, as reported by Alexandra Deabler of Fox News, October 9, 2019 (link in original):

That’s a holy lot of money.

A limited-edition sneaker, which is filled with holy water in the soles and blessed by a priest, sold out within minutes of its debut, despite each pair costing a whopping $3,000.

Brooklyn-based creative label MSCHF is responsible for releasing the shoe, which is a pair of all-white Nike Air Max 97s -- though the design is in no way affiliated with Nike -- that have been injected with holy water sourced from the Jordan River. The water, which is visible in the see-through sole, has some coloring added to enhance visibility, the shoe’s creator told Fox News.

The kicks, succinctly called “Jesus Shoes,” also feature the Bible verse Matthew 14:25 — the passage describing Jesus walking on water — and a single blood drop to represent the blood of Christ.

Among the other religious details are the frankincense-scented insoles, a crucifix threaded through the laces, and a red sole, which references the red shoes traditionally worn by past Popes.

The shoebox itself also displays an angel and a seal that resembles the official papal seal.

The shoes, which were bought at Nike retail value by MSCHF designers before being re-designed, were part of a desire for the MSCHF brand to poke fun at collaboration culture.

“We thought of that Arizona Iced Tea and Adidas collab, where they were selling shoes that [advertised] a beverage company that sells iced tea at bodegas,” head of commerce Daniel Greenberg tells the New York Post. “So we wanted to make a statement about how absurd collab culture has gotten.”

“We were wondering, what would a collab with Jesus Christ look like?” he added.

Less than two dozen of the Jesus Shoes were made with no plans to create more, according to MSCHF. Although, Gabriel Whaley, founder of the brand, hinted there may be a “second coming” in the future.

The MSCHF label releases new items every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month.

As reported by Lauren Steussy and Hannah Frishberg in the New York Post, October 8, 2019:

What would Jesus wear? The sickest sneakers ever dropped, most likely.

Nike shoes with actual holy water in the soles are going for as much as $3,000 a pop, and sold out in mere minutes when they dropped Tuesday morning. “Jesus Shoes” are made with 100% frankincense wool (get it?), while the laces are strewn with a crucifix.

The godly shoes were made by Brooklyn-based product design company MSCHF, which created about two dozen of the kicks as a way of trolling “collab culture,” its head of commerce Daniel Greenberg tells The Post.

“We thought of that Arizona Iced Tea and Adidas collab, where they were selling shoes that [advertised] a beverage company that sells iced tea at bodegas,” Greenberg says. “So we wanted to make a statement about how absurd collab culture has gotten.”

To do that, it started with “one of the most influential figures in history,” Jesus Christ.

“We were wondering, what would a collab with Jesus Christ look like?” Greenberg says. “As a Jew myself, the only thing I knew was that he walked on water.”

The holy water MSCHF injected into Air Max 97 bubble soles came from the Jordan River — “I have a friend in Israel,” Greenberg says — and was blessed by a priest.

Shoe drops like these, followed obsessively by rabid fans called “hypebeasts,” have become an economy unto themselves. Cash-strapped fashion fans are even turning to the underground streetwear market to make ends meet, reselling duds from the likes of Supreme and Kith.

To promote its shoes, MSCHF sent about six pairs to YouTubers and other big shots, such as rapper A$AP Rocky, prior to the drop. Then, by 11 a.m. Tuesday, it posted them on the retail site StockX.

The shoes were in no part affiliated with Nike — MSCHF bought the sneakers at retail value and hand-created the design. MSCHF anticipates making “biweekly drops at 11 a.m. on every second and fourth Tuesday of each month,” Greenberg says.

“But this one was the holiest of all the collabs,” he says.

Jerry Falwell, Jr. accused of using Liberty University assets to benefit his personal trainer in real estate deal

Some "non-profit" organizations and the people who run them seem to have a suspiciously large amount of wealth; as reported by Aram Roston and Joshua Schneyer of Reuters, August 27, 2019 (link in original):

LYNCHBURG, Va. - Evangelical leader and prominent Donald Trump backer Jerry Falwell Jr personally approved real estate transactions by his nonprofit Christian university that helped his personal fitness trainer obtain valuable university property, according to real estate records, internal university emails and interviews.

Around 2011, Falwell, president of Liberty University in Virginia, and his wife, Rebecca, began personal fitness training sessions with Benjamin Crosswhite, then a 23-year-old recent Liberty graduate. Now, after a series of university real estate transactions signed by Falwell, Crosswhite owns a sprawling 18-acre racquet sports and fitness facility on former Liberty property. Last year, a local bank approved a line of credit allowing Crosswhite’s business to borrow as much as $2 million against the property.

Falwell, one of the most influential right-wing Christian leaders in the United States, has been buffeted by disclosures about his private dealings over the last year and a half.

A Florida lawsuit brought public scrutiny to a relationship between the Falwells and Giancarlo Granda, a young man they befriended while he was working as a pool attendant at a luxury Miami Beach hotel and later backed in a business venture involving a youth hostel. Falwell filed an affidavit in 2018 saying he used his own wealth to lend $1.8 million to the $4.65 million project with Granda.

And U.S. President Trump’s now-jailed fixer, Michael Cohen, has said he helped the Falwells suppress racy personal photos, as Reuters reported this May, in the months before Cohen persuaded Falwell to endorse Trump’s 2016 White House bid. There is no evidence that Cohen’s efforts to suppress the photos were a quid pro quo for Falwell’s vital political backing.

The support Falwell provided to the two young men, Granda and Crosswhite, has some parallels. Both were aided in business ventures and both have flown on the nonprofit university’s corporate jet.

One difference: When Falwell helped Crosswhite, he used the assets of Liberty, the tax-exempt university he has led since 2008. Among the largest Christian universities in the world, Liberty depends on hundreds of millions of dollars its students receive in federally backed student loans and Pell grants.

In 2016, Falwell signed a real estate deal transferring the sports facility, complete with tennis courts and a fitness center owned by Liberty, to Crosswhite. Under the terms, Crosswhite wasn’t required to put any of his own money down toward the purchase price, a confidential sales contract obtained by Reuters shows.

Liberty committed nearly $650,000 up front to lease back tennis courts from Crosswhite at the site for nine years. The school also offered Crosswhite financing, at a low 3% interest rate, to cover the rest of the $1.2 million transaction, the contract shows.

Crosswhite declined to answer questions about the deal. “All I will say is that my wife and I consult each other before every major business deal and we bought the complex from Liberty together,” he said in an email. “My wife and I both work around the clock to make our business succeed.”

Falwell referred Reuters to the university for comment. Liberty issued a statement describing the transaction as both proper and beneficial for the school.

Liberty had received the athletic center as a gift in 2011 from a trustee who has since died, but it quickly became a “drain on university resources,” the statement said. Crosswhite had been leasing gym space at the property since 2013, and was thus “the most viable purchaser.” Liberty said it adjusted the price and financed Crosswhite’s purchase because its tennis team would continue to use the courts.

Falwell has “tried to be a business mentor” to Crosswhite, the university statement said, but that effort did not “cause him to abandon his fiduciary duties” to Liberty.

As Liberty’s leader, Falwell draws an annual salary of nearly $1 million, and is obligated to put the university’s financial interests before his own personal interests when conducting Liberty business.

Liberty University denies the charges; you can see Liberty's side of the story here, and Dr. Falwell's response here.



See also my previous posts:

Libertine University (May 9, 2009)

Look who Liberty University's commencement speakers are for 2010 (April 24, 2010)

Adulterer and New Ager-turned Roman Catholic Newt Gingrich to speak at The Awakening 2011 conference at Liberty University in April (March 15, 2011)

Liberty University (and another "Christian" school) stage a work by Jesus Christ Superstar composer (March 24, 2011)

Liberty University has Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin as a guest speaker--after he's been exposed as a Jesuit (March 14, 2012)

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to deliver keynote address at 2018 commencement of Liberty University (March 27, 2018)

Some Britons call for improvements in religious postage stamps for Christmas

As reported by Katie Morley and Phoebe Southworth of the London Daily Telegraph, December 15, 2018:

(photograph)

The Royal Mail is facing calls to modernise the design of its religious Christmas stamps as they are being overtaken by secular ones for first time.

Around six in ten festive stamps bought by members of the public are now secular ones, up from around four in ten five years ago, according to the National Federation of Subpostmasters which supplies them to post offices around the UK.

Experts said Royal Mail's religious stamps tended to be more serious and less glamorous in their design than secular stamps, potentially contributing to their decline in popularity among letter senders hoping to garner festive cheer.

Tim Dieppe, head of public policy at Christian Concern, said: "There's much in the Christmas story that could be visual.

You've got the kings, the shepherds, the manger, the appearances of the angels. "There is much to be creative with in the Christmas story.

"I don't know whether it is because the artists for secular stamps are better and more creative than those designing the religious ones.

"It is disappointing. Perhaps secular stamps portray the Christmas story in a more glamorous way. Sometimes I think religious artists are trying to make it more serious - portrayals of Father Christmas happy and smiling are Mary holding a baby is less attractive."

Every year the Royal Mail designs a new set of stamps, alternating between religious and secular. Post Offices aim to supply both types of stamps to give customers a choice between the two.

The religious stamps on offer this year were designed in 2017 and feature images of the Madonna and Child. The secular ones were designed this year and feature families posting letters through bright red postboxes in the snow.

Meanwhile a number of customers have complained of a shortage of religious stamps at their local post offices and shops, suggesting too few may have been made available.

One frustrated consumer, eager to get his Christmas cards sent out, resorted to buying them online from Royal Mail, resulting in him paying £1.45 postage on postage stamps.

Another customer who said they were unable to buy religious stamps said: "Clearly the Royal Mail is determined to take Christ out of Christmas."

The Royal Mail denied any issues with supply and said it was up to shops and Post Offices to request more religious stamps if they had run out...

Financial Post Magazine provides evidence of the moral collapse of a once-great country

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death...
...Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people. Proverbs 14:12, 34

Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; Jeremiah 22:13a

But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
For the love of money is the root of all evil: I Timothy 6:9-10a

For those who may be unaware, the Canadian government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau succeeded in passing legislation legalizing the recreational use of cannabis; the legalization came into effect on October 17, 2018. There was no good reason for this legalization to take place, but Mr. Trudeau, whom I call the "Manchurian Pothead," and his colleagues have been smoking marijuana illegally for years, and now they're in a position to make their behaviour legal.

Financial Post Magazine is the magazine of The Financial Post, the daily business section of the National Post newspaper. Click on the link to see the cover story of the magazine's October 2018 issue:

The Cannabis Power List: Movers and shakers we’re buzzing about in the pot world

An accompanying sidebar:

20 power players putting down roots in the cannabis industry

The reader of these articles will notice that there's no hint of any moral issues involved--it's just a business, with tremendous opportunities for increased riches, although with regulatory aspects that have yet to be determined. I find Trudeaupia Canada increasingly unrecognizable.

British Columbia mall and Salvation Army clear up misunderstanding over performance of Christmas carols

Although intolerance and persecution of Christians is increasing, what was initially reported as an example of this in Prince George seems instead to have been just a misunderstanding. As reported by Nick Faris of the National Post, November 19, 2018:

A British Columbia mall that disapproved of Christian Christmas carols being performed at a Salvation Army fundraising event on its premises has backtracked, assuring the charity that two songs about the birth of Jesus won’t be banned from future shows under the mall’s prohibition on religious music.

The Pine Centre Mall in Prince George, B.C., has restored the Christ in Christmas, with management deciding over the weekend that Mary’s Boy Child and Go Tell It On The Mountain don’t threaten its ability to remain non-partisan and non-sectarian.

Neil Wilkinson, the captain of the Salvation Army’s Prince George chapter, says he was standing to the side of a small concert his organization held to kickstart its annual Christmas kettle campaign on Friday afternoon when the mall’s promotions manager informed him that the carols a local trio was singing in front of them violated Pine Centre policy.

“I watched her angst rising,” Wilkinson said. As soon as the singers finished their set, Wilkinson continued, he walked up to the microphone, thanked the assembled crowd, wished them Merry Christmas and cut short the event with one act left on the docket.

“I chose to shut things down before it compromised any relationships the Salvation Army has in the community,” he said.

As it turns out, Wilkinson need not have fretted. He says another mall official told him the following day that the two carols constituted “traditional Christmas music” and, as such, were permissible forms of expression at the mall despite their lyrics’ constant references to Jesus, the Lord, the Bible and Christianity.

The American composer Jester Hairston wrote Mary’s Boy Child in 1956 to hail the long-ago birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem: “Hark, now hear the angels sing, a king was born today / And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.” Go Tell It On The Mountain, meanwhile, is an African-American spiritual that exhorts people to disperse “over the hills and everywhere” to proclaim Jesus’ birth.

The group that sang Mary’s Boy Child and Go Tell It On The Mountain opened their set with two other songs, at which point the promotions director approached Wilkinson to ask for the noise level to be toned down. The musicians were using guitar amps rather than performing acoustically, an expectation Wilkinson said the Salvation Army forgot to tell them about.

Wilkinson said the promotions director continued to stand beside him and expressed her misgivings when Mary’s Boy Child and Go Tell It On The Mountain were played.

Pine Centre Mall’s general manager, Rachel Olson, did not return calls seeking comment before deadline on Monday. She told the Prince George Citizen newspaper that the carol flap was “just a misunderstanding and miscommunication amongst all parties … The Salvation Army and Pine Centre Mall have an amazing relationship that goes back years and they will continue to be here and we will continue to support them in all the ways that we can.”

In future, Wilkinson said, mall management has asked to approve in advance any carolling the Salvation Army wants to hold at its kettle location. He added that he and Olson came to a verbal understanding on Saturday that Mary’s Boy Child and Go Tell It On The Mountain would be allowed at future shows.

The Salvation Army has launched its kettle fundraising campaign with musical performances at the mall for several years running, dating to before Wilkinson became the local captain eight Christmases ago. He said a few singers have told him they’d like to perform there later this holiday season, but noted he’d refrain from organizing more carolling if that’s what the public prefers.

“Our goal as the Salvation Army is to be a source of hope in the community,” Wilkinson said. “If our carolling is not helpful, well, then we’re happy to pull back.”

As reported by Christine Hinzmann of the Prince George Citizen, November 17, 2018:

A Facebook post claiming a choir performance at Pine Centre Mall that ended earlier than scheduled late Friday afternoon to kick off the Salvation Army's annual Christmas kettle campaign was shut down due to "material being performed that was offensive" is being downplayed by both the church and the mall.

In his original post on Facebook, which Rod Walker subsequently took down, he wrote in part "MALL ADMINISTRATION, accompanied by SECURITY, came out. Some things were said about material being performed that was offensive to some. Salvation Army was asked to leave, and the music ceased. KICKING THE SALVATION ARMY OUT OF THE MALL. IN PRINCE GEORGE, CANADA!!"

Walker's post spread quickly through Facebook, as numerous people shared it with their social media friends and commented on it.

Walker told the Citizen in an interview Saturday that he stood behind his Facebook post. Walker, according to his post, arrived at the mall as the event was ending and said one of the performers told him they were asked to leave the mall because the group performed Go Tell It On The Mountain.

Salvation Army Captain Neil Wilkinson said he was not escorted out of the Pine Centre Mall by security, contrary to comments made on the original Facebook post.

It was Wilkinson's choice to end the performance and leave early.

Everything went well as the Bel Canto Choir performed without amplification, Wilkinson said. Then another group started to perform with electric guitars and an amplified microphone.

"We are partly at fault," Wilkinson said. The performers were not supposed to have any kind of amplification during their performances.

The music selection was also an issue when the group sang Mary's Boy Child and Go Tell It On the Mountain, he added. The music is Christian and there were complaints made to the administration of the Pine Centre Mall about it.

"That's when I decided to shut it down," Wilkinson said. "The Salvation Army does not bare any ill will. We are very grateful for all our community partnerships. This is the first time we were asked not to sing religious music. The Salvation Army is a spiritual organization. We are Christian and being Christian is part of who we are."

"This is just a misunderstanding and miscommunication amongst all parties - no children were removed from the property," Rachel Olson, Pine Centre Mall's marketing director, said. "No kettles were removed from the property."

Olson said there was not an agreement in place with the Salvation Army and that meant they did not know what the expectations for their performance at the mall would include. There is an agreement in place for the kettle campaign and it will continue as scheduled, she added.

"We've spoken to the Salvation Army and we're all good," Olson said. "Things just got blown up. The kettles are still here, no children were involved - nothing crazy like that. That's not what happened. The Salvation Army and Pine Centre Mall have an amazing relationship that goes back years and they will continue to be here and we will continue to support them in all the ways that we can."

I sympathize with the objections over amplification; when and why did ear-splitting noise become equated with "worship?" If any objections are raised over the singing of "religious songs," a good response might be to say that songs about the birth of Jesus Christ aren't religious songs, but songs about a significant historical event. This blogger couldn't help noticing, though, that the Salvation Army is willing to stop singing about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ in order to raise money for their community service, perhaps indicating a preference for the social gospel over the true gospel if push comes to shove.

Movie about notorious abortionist Kermit Gosnell opens in theatres on October 12

The reader will notice the willingness of those in positions of legal and political power to ignore the law, with disastrous and evil consequences. As reported by Phelim McAleer in The Epoch Times, August 24, 2018 (updated August 29, 2018) (link in original):

I’ve just produced a movie about the true story of America’s most prolific serial killer. You might think there is nothing unusual or noteworthy about that—stories about serial killers seem to make up an awful lot of movies and prime-time TV these days.

But what if I told you that not only is it about America’s biggest serial killer—one most people have never heard of—but that it also touches on one of the most contentious and divisive issues in America today?

The film is about Kermit Gosnell, an abortion doctor who is serving several life sentences for murder. And his case has been mostly ignored by a pro-choice media that does not want to report on any story that shines a negative light on abortion.

It seems this is the perfect time for a spotlight to be shone on what’s really happening in abortion clinics across the country.

President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy means that, for the first time, there might be an abortion-skeptic majority on the bench. This has animated and alarmed abortion supporters. They are determined to stop Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination. Planned Parenthood has pledged to give over $30 million to pro-choice candidates in the midterm elections. It is going to become one of the hottest topics in an already heated political environment.

So what exactly do abortion lobbyists and Cecile Richards want to preserve? What rights need to be protected from the Kavanaugh grouping? Do we really need fewer, not more, regulations, as abortion advocates maintain?

The fact is, most people know very little about what goes on behind closed doors in the nation’s abortion clinics. We didn’t, either, until we started researching for the film.

Gosnell was a respected doctor in the highly regulated state of Pennsylvania. Gosnell also happened to be a serial killer who kept killing and getting away with it, despite those regulations. Inspections of Gosnell’s clinic uncovered serious violations and health hazards, but officials took no action and refused to investigate further.

But worse was to come in 1995, when Tom Ridge was elected governor of Pennsylvania as a “pro-choice” Republican. He won and immediately, in contravention of the law, announced an end to the already cursory annual inspections.

The decision cleared the way for Gosnell to operate what a grand jury would later describe as a “baby charnel house” while regulators looked the other way.

A Philadelphia jury eventually found Gosnell guilty on three counts of murder and one count of involuntary manslaughter. Investigators believed that over the course of 30 years, he killed hundreds, perhaps thousands.

Despite this dramatic evidence, the trial was initially not covered by the mainstream media. Eventually, a social media campaign forced them to send reporters and give the case some coverage.

It seems no one wants to learn from the Gosnell case.

Striking down a Texas law aimed at monitoring abortion clinics, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg described Gosnell as a “rogue practitioner.” Ginsberg offered little in the way of proof for her claim. But evidence from a pair of recent congressional investigations has revealed what other abortion providers have done behind closed doors despite apparently ironclad laws and regulations.

The Senate judiciary committee and a House select investigative panel looked into claims that Planned Parenthood sold body parts of aborted fetuses to private labs. The probes soon widened to look at the other illegal behaviors of some abortion practitioners. The Senate committee report detailed the practices of a Texas abortionist that bear a striking resemblance to Gosnell’s grisly work.

According to one employee’s testimony, every week abortions concerning “three to four infants would show signs of life.” And just like Gosnell, the doctor would immediately kill them. The employee said he employed Gosnell’s technique of “snipping the infant’s spinal cord with scissors.”

But the investigations’ most shocking findings detailed how the body-part selling business worked.

One company, Advanced Biosciences Resources (ABR), produced sales orders and invoices that showed they paid Planned Parenthood $55 for a baby’s brain, then sold it to a researcher for over $3,000—a profit of 2,800 percent.

The Senate investigation published invoices that showed ABR bought a fetus from Planned Parenthood for $60. According to their own sales figures, they “sold its brain to one customer for $325; both of its eyes for $325 each ($650 total) to a second customer, a portion of its liver for $325 to a third customer; its thymus for $325 and another portion of liver to a fourth customer; and its lung for $325 to a fifth customer.”

Another clinic sold the skin of a Down syndrome baby for $325.

Our film does not look at these later investigations. We focus on the Gosnell investigation and how he was allowed to keep killing. We look at the heroes who put him behind bars.

If Kavanaugh becomes a Supreme Court justice, abortion in America will come under a massive spotlight. It is important that the spotlight reveals truths, not myths. Our film is part of that process.

Phelim McAleer is a journalist and film producer. His new film, “Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer,” will be released nationwide on Oct. 12. For more information, visit GosnellMovie.com

Thousands of Israelis protest passage of surrogacy law that excludes sodomite/lesbian couples

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Romans 1:24-32

With the godlessness and immorality that so characterizes Israeli society, it's a wonder the law as it is got passed; as reported by Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 22, 2018:

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Protesters marched through Tel Aviv and blocked the main Ayalon highway as day-long demonstrations kicked off across the country to protest a new surrogacy law that does not include gay couples.

Thousands of marchers waving rainbow flags blocked the Ayalon in central Tel Aviv. At the same time, hundreds of protesters in support of the LGBT community launched a demonstration near the official prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem.

Major demonstrations also were held in Haifa in the north and Beersheba in the south. Protests also were planned in smaller Israeli cities.

The day’s main protest was a rally Sunday night in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv. Some 60,000 demonstrators reportedly packed the square for the rally.

The strike was announced shortly after the Knesset vote by the Aguda, the umbrella organization for the LGBT community in Israel.

The surrogacy law, which expands those eligible to hire surrogates in Israel to include single women, but excludes single men and gay couples, passed early Thursday morning in the Knesset by a vote of 59 to 52, part of a flood of votes before the lawmakers recessed at the end of the summer session.

Following the vote, the local divisions of several international companies, including Microsoft and Apple, announced they would support financially any employees who want to start a family though surrogacy.

Dozens of companies also offered a paid day off to employees who want to join the Sunday demonstrations. Many of those companies, and others throughout Israel, already were offering Sunday as an optional day off for employees in order to observe the solemn fast day of Tisha B’Av, marking the destruction of the Holy Temples in Jerusalem.

Anglican churches in England are selling stained glass windows and organs to make ends meet

The Church of England has been in a death spiral for so long that I can't remember when it wasn't. The obvious solution is to preach the true gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, with the Bible as the only authority of faith and practice, with real Bible-believing Christians in the pulpits and pews. However, such a course is anathema to a church that's deep into apostasy; as a result, those churches that haven't sold their buildings and had them converted into mosques are now selling their artifacts, as reported by Olivia Rudgard of the London Daily Telegraph, June 27, 2018 (link in original):

Churches are selling off their stained glass windows and organs to fund upkeep, a Church of England court has warned.

John Bullimore, chancellor of the Diocese of Derby, said that fears that churches would rip out valuable artefacts to raise money were well-founded.

Ruling on an application by All Saints Church, Findern, to remove a 150-year-old organ and install a kitchen and toilet, Mr Bullimore said he shared the concerns of the organ adviser that small churches would "sell off assets - furniture or fixtures and fittings - because they are ‘not really needed’, or the mission of the church locally is more important".

"I do not think this danger is altogether fanciful," he said, adding that he had previously heard a case where a church had sought to sell its stained glass windows to a Japanese firm "to adorn some building for rest, recreation and refreshment thousands of miles away".

The request had been turned down, he said, in part because it was "wrong in principle for churches to look round their interiors in times of need to see what ‘treasures’ they could dispose of as decorative items, whether they be unused pulpits or balconies, or pews or windows, or indeed anything else, that might find a ready sale, and raise some funds."

He added: "Such items are part of the heritage, and were probably first acquired in many cases as the result of many small and sacrificial gifts by a large number of parishioners and benefactors contributing to the costs of erecting and fitting out the church.

"So in my own limited experience, I think the danger is real."

However, he granted the church permission to remove the organ because its sale was "by no means a money-raising scheme" and the change would allow the church to install better facilities.

Alex Malarkey, "The Boy Who Didn't Come Came Back from Heaven," is suing Tyndale House

Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?
Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.
I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?
But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers.
Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?
Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren. I Corinthians 6:1-8

I hope this situation gets resolved before it gets to court. Neither side looks very good so far, and it's unlikely that it will end well. I wonder how long it will be before Heaven is for Real, the alleged visit to Heaven of Colton Burpo, is similarly revealed to be untrue, despite it being believed by some people who should know better. As reported by Kyle Swenson of The Washington Post, April 13, 2018 (links in original):

On Nov. 14, 2004, as 6-year-old Alex Malarkey drove home with his father Kevin in rural Ohio, a left turn nearly took his life. As Kevin turned the car it collided with another vehicle, and the boy’s skull became completely detached from his spinal cord.

But Alex did not die — and that’s the central fact behind a long-running controversy that has now led to a lawsuit.

Two months after the crash, Alex emerged from a coma as a quadriplegic. The injured boy also began telling family and friends about traveling to heaven and meeting Jesus and Satan.

In July 2010, Kevin and Alex Malarkey penned an account of the boy’s religious experience, “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven.” The book was published by Tyndale House, a publisher of Christian books. It went on to reportedly move more than 1 million copies and spent months on the New York Times bestseller’s list. The book was part of a bumper crop of similarly geared narratives — tales of near-death experiences and brushes with the Almighty published by religious imprints.

Then it all fell apart. In January 2015, Alex, now paralyzed from the neck down, admitted he had fabricated the story.

“I did not die,” he wrote in a blog post. “I did not go to Heaven. I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention.”

The admission created a firestorm within the worlds of evangelical faith and Christian publishing. The controversy was revived this week when Alex — now 20 years old and living off Social Security — filed a lawsuit against Tyndale House in Illinois’s DuPage County, where the publisher is located. The complaint alleges Kevin Malarkey was the main actor behind the fabrication.

“Kevin Malarkey … concocted a story that, during the time Alex was in a coma, he had gone to Heaven, communicated with God the Father, Jesus, angels, and the devil, and then returned,” the complaint says. “Kevin Malarkey sold the concocted story, allegedly about Alex’s life and what Alex allegedly experienced, to one of the largest Christian publishers in the country.”

Alex has also not received any of the revenue related to his story, the lawsuit alleges.

When reached for comment, a Tyndale House representative told The Washington Post the publisher had just learned of the lawsuit on Tuesday and planned to release a response on Wednesday.

After the publication of “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven,” behind the scenes of the tremendous success, Alex’s distaste for the project was building. According to a 2015 report by the Guardian, Alex’s mother Beth had begun posting on a personal blog (now taken down) about inaccuracies in the book since at least 2011. The paper also cited emails showing the family had also told the publisher.

“Alex’s name and identity are being used against his wishes. … How can this be going on???” Beth wrote in April 2014 blog, The Washington Post reported at the time. “Great question. … How did it get this far? … another great question.”

Following Alex’s blog post recanting his story, Tyndale House decided to “take the book and related ancillary products out of print,” a company spokesman told the Post.

“For the past couple of years we have known that Beth Malarkey, Kevin’s wife and Alex’s mother, was unhappy with the book and believed it contained inaccuracies,” another Tyndale representative told The Post. “On more than one occasion we asked for a meeting with Kevin, Beth, Alex and their agent to discuss and correct any inaccuracies, but Beth would not agree to such a meeting.”

According to his new lawsuit against the company, the legal action is a way of finally settling the matter.

“Now that he is an adult, Alex desires to have his name completely disassociated from the book and seeks a permanent injunction against Tyndale House requiring it to do everything within reason to disassociate his name from the book,” the complaint states. “Alex is not affiliated with the book. Alex is not connected to the book. Alex wants and has no association with the book.”

The lawsuit reaffirms that Alex’s holy sojourn was fantasy. “The portrayal of Alex’s near-death experience contained in the book is entirely false, because Alex remembers absolutely nothing from the time he was in a coma. The core of the story is entirely false.”

But the complaint also alleges Tyndale House has not cooperated with Alex as he tries to solve the complicated legacy behind the book. Only Kevin Malarkey signed a publishing agreement for the book. This January, Alex’s attorneys wrote to Tyndale House asking for an “accounting of all revenue earned from, all expenses associated with, and all disbursements made in association with the publication of and sale of the book.”

The publisher, however, only agreed to do so if Alex agreed the publishing agreement was “in effect and binding,” the lawsuit says.

“Alex has never been permitted to read the contract, nor to review any accountings provided under the contract, he refuses to acknowledge that the contract ‘is in effect and binding,’ now that he has reached the age of majority,” the suit states.

Alex is suing the publisher on the grounds of defamation, financial exploitation, and publicity placing a person in a false light, among others.

“Despite the fact that Tyndale House has made millions of dollars off Alex’s identity and an alleged autobiographical story of his life, Tyndale House paid Alex, a paralyzed young man, nothing,” the lawsuit states.

Backlog: Big law firm uses fingerprint-scanning to track employees

As reported by Niamh Scallan of The Toronto Star, November 1, 2012:

The days of sneaking out for three-hour lunch breaks will soon be over at a Bay Street law firm after it decided to install fingerprint-scanning technology to monitor its employees’ whereabouts.

Last month, McCague Borlack LLP announced plans for a revamped security system that will require staff (except lawyers who spend much of their time with clients) to clock in and out of the office with a finger swipe, keeping track of morning late-comers or those who try to jump-start their weekends by slipping out early on a Friday.

“Some people were abusing the system,” said founding partner Howard Borlack, 58. “We had people taking two to three hours for lunch and we had no way of knowing. . . . Some people were complaining.”

Other Toronto firms use security passes and honour systems to keep track of time worked. McCague Borlack, which focuses mostly on insurance law and employs about 200 people, has gone a step further with a system that not only provides office access via fingerprint, but also records employees as they enter and leave.

Come mid-November, when the system is expected to go live, the office will be equipped with finger-scanning machines supplied by Utah-based Qqest, Inc. that will keep a rolling record of the time spent in the office.

It’s mostly about improved building security, said Borlack, a way to keep track of people coming in and out of the office and streamlining administrative tasks. But with concern within the firm that some people are working less than 40 hours a week, the monitoring feature is “a huge bonus.”

“I know we have people who probably work less than 35 hours a week and if I listen to all the griping about certain people, I’m sure it’s well less than that,” Borlack said.

A boon for productivity-conscious managers, the plan has drawn outrage among a group of bloggers who identify themselves as McCague Borlack secretaries.

On their “Finger Campaign” website, the group has accused the firm of singling out secretaries and copy-room staff (by exempting some lawyers from the program), and called the system an “insult to our human dignity” that has had a “very chilling effect on the secretaries’ psyche.”

“The indignant fingerprinting program does not seek to address any security concerns at all,” one post read. “It’s for the ‘mark ’em and track ’em’ purpose exclusively.”

Borlack admitted he “knew it would be uncomfortable” for some employees, but said he was careful to ensure the fingerprint technology would not violate privacy issues. He denounced the “Finger Campaign” as false, noting the new measure was intended mostly for security purposes and most staff seemed to be on board.

Rosa DeFrenza, a receptionist at the firm for five years, said she had not yet seen the “Finger Campaign” website, but said she thought the program could help to standardize work hours among her colleagues.

She added that diligent workers, herself included, had no reason to be concerned about the program. “No one should be working more than anyone else, no one should be working less than anyone else,” DeFrenza said.

But where to draw the line?

Carleton University law professor Michael MacNeil, who specializes in legal issues surrounding privacy and surveillance, said the fingerprinting system is just one example of the way workplaces are using technology to monitor and maximize productivity.

But legislation has lagged behind the trend, he said, leaving more questions than answers over what constitutes an invasion of privacy in the workplace.

“There’s a lot of it going on,” he said. “It’s an area where the law is underdeveloped.”

If a religious group used methods such as those described above, it would be considered evidence of the group's cultic character. Indeed, that comparison has already been made. Mary Otvos, a young woman who was quitting the practice of law after 10 years wrote an article titled Why I'm Leaving Law, which appeared on pages 12-17 of the February 1992 issue of Canadian Lawyer. Unfortunately, the magazine's online archives don't go back that far, and that article doesn't seem to be available online. One of the observations that Ms. Otvos made was that big law firms are like religious cults in their efforts to control their people. That article appeared 20 years before McCague Borlack began using fingerprint technology to monitor their employees' whereabouts; the use of surveillance technology has enabled the cult leaders to be even more controlling.

Self-driving Uber car runs down and kills pedestrian in Arizona

As Paul Harvey used to say, "If you don't have enough to worry about..." As reported by Gabrielle Olivera and Ryan Randazzo of the Arizona Republic, March 19, 2018 (links in original):

In what is believed to be the nation's first pedestrian death involving an autonomous vehicle, a 49-year-old woman was hit and killed by a self-driving Volvo operated by Uber while crossing a street in Tempe on Sunday night.

The woman was crossing Mill Avenue outside the crosswalk near the Marque Theatre at about 10 p.m. when she was hit, police said.

Sgt. Ronald Elcock, a Tempe police spokesman, said the car was on autonomous mode with a driver behind the wheel when it hit the pedestrian.

The woman, identified as Elaine Herzberg of Mesa, died at a hospital.

Uber said that its operations of self-driving cars have been "paused." The company did not dispute the police report of the vehicle operating in autonomous mode.

Uber has been carrying customers in the self-driving cars in limited parts of Tempe and Scottsdale.

"Our hearts go out to the victim’s family," Uber said. "We’re fully cooperating with local authorities as they investigate this incident."

The Phoenix area is among several sites where Uber, Waymo and other companies are testing autonomous vehicles. Nearly every accident involving autonomous cars so far has been the fault of other drivers. Sunday's fatality was the first.

In 2016, a man driving a Tesla car with partial automation was killed in Florida when he hit a truck. However, that vehicle was not intended to operate without an attentive driver, in contrast with the Uber and Waymo vehicles.

Uber and Waymo have drivers in their test cars in the Phoenix area to take control only when the cars encounter a traffic situation they can't negotiate, or if they are driving outside of areas the companies have mapped sufficiently enough to allow the cars to run on their own. Waymo has even taken operators out of the driver seat for some tests.

As of Monday afternoon, police were investigating what caused the collision and said that Uber was assisting.

Hollywood predicted this decades ago:





HT: Vox Popoli

Beware of church surveys using Gloo software

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Proverbs 14:12 (also Proverbs 16:25)

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Matthew 7:16-20

I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. John 15:5

Warning: Lengthy post ahead

My church conducted a survey in 2017 of the spiritual condition of the church. I refused to fill it out for two reasons: I didn't trust the confidentiality (I'm a suspicious person); and when I went to the website of the firm conducting the survey, I didn't like what I saw. The survey was conducted by Gloo, which describes itself as Software for developing people--Designed for Growth, Powered by Relationships (bold in original). Gloo offers solutions for: Churches; Dental Organizations; Addiction Recovery Centers; Para-Churches; Mindfulness; Healthcare; Life Coaching; Corporate Mentorship; Behavioral Health; Financial Services; Education.

The mention of the New Age practice of mindfulness should raise the eyebrows of any discerning Christian. As Ray Yungen stated,

mindfulness involves focusing on the breath to stop the normal flow of thought. In effect, it acts the same way as a mantra; and as with Yoga, it is presented as something to cure society’s ills.

Go to Lighthouse Trails Research Project and search under "mindfulness" for more information.

Gloo advocates and uses the familiar methods of the Church Growth Movement, which uses techniques derived from business and applies them to the church. The pastor is no longer a shepherd, but a Chief Executive Officer, leading by "vision casting," and the main duty of elders is to support the pastor's vision--a leadership model which is not found in the New Testament. Instead of emphasis on the gospel of Jesus Christ as "the power of God unto salvation" (Romans 1:16), Christianity is treated as a consumer good to be marketed, and the people in the pews are regarded as customers whose felt needs are to be satisfied. Of course, "felt needs" are not necessarily the same as real needs, and what we all really need is a Saviour.

I take great offense at church members being described as customers. I'm not a customer; I'm a member of the body of Christ, with my membership purchased by His blood on the cross. A customer has no obligation to the company; if dissatisfied, a customer can get a similar product elsewhere, or forgo the product entirely.

Jesus said "Without me you can do nothing," but the Church Growth Movement says, "Yes, you can, just follow the methods we recommend, and these methods will work not just for churches, but for other organizations." If the methods of the Church Growth Movement can be used by secular organizations--even those which are anti-Christian--then the Church Growth Movement is not in fact Christian, because Jesus said, "Without me you can do nothing."

The Lord said that he would build his church, and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). The church in the 1st century that was under the leadership of the apostles--men directly commissioned by Jesus Christ--didn't use the methods of the Church Growth Movement, but the church grew anyway.

See my post Orthodox Jewish synagogues in the United States are using the methods of the Church Growth Movement (December 27, 2017).

An example of Gloo's promotion of the Church Growth Movement is provided by Matt Engel, November 1, 2017 (bold, links in original):

It’s estimated that only 35% of Americans attend church weekly and 84% of churches are declining or plateauing.

In the article Christian America is in Decline, the author explains,

“One reason so many are opting out of religion, or never opting in to begin with, is that churches are addressing the wrong questions.”

In short, members leave because they feel their church doesn’t provide enough spiritual engagement. Some want more opportunities to serve. While other are looking for ways to solve frustrations or doubts. Many even feel like church is irrelevant, and list that as the primary reason they leave, or never get involved in church.

Keep reading to see more about how you can rethink the decline in church attendance. Then learn about big data and how you can use it to reach your communities and retain congregants.

Churches that adopt new ways to connect with their cities and congregations are thriving

Not all churches are declining. Some are thriving as they discover new ways to meet spiritual and communal needs. One of the newest ways churches can determine these needs is with big data.

“The typical church is not good at tracking data. We keep track of how big the offering is. We keep good track of attendance. But we honestly don’t use data well,” explains Carl Kuhl of Outreach Magazine.

The article, 7 Keys to Church Growth, states “Church members are one of the key customer groups in a church. Understanding their unique needs and ensuring their needs are met – within the scope of the vision – is critical to church growth.”

Before we jump into the ways you can use big data in your church, let’s take a minute to discuss what big data is.

You’ve heard about it, but what exactly is big data?

Google defines big data as “extremely large data sets that may be analyzed to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions.”

Though the term is relatively new, the use of data to guide decisions is not. Tribespeople tracked data by carving notches in bones or sticks to calculate trading activities or determine how long their supplies would last.

In the 1660s John Graunt collected mortality data and analyzed it to determine the frequency of various causes of death. He used that same data to refute the idea that the bubonic plague spreads by contagion. He even theorized an early warning system for the plague. Though mortality information had been collected for years, Graunt was the first to use the information to make connections to disease and population.

Today analysts use big data to predict heart disease, predict the spread of malaria and, of course, to track buying habits and encourage new purchases. But, just as John Graunt used data to draw conclusions to certain illnesses and disease, the data collected today does little good if it’s not acted upon.

Big data only offers solutions when it’s acted upon

We consciously, or subconsciously, match our reactions to the information we have available, in other words Know & Match. The more we know, the better we’re able to match our responses. For example, when you connect to your weather app you know the forecast and can match your clothing or activities accordingly. You act on the information provided.

Doctors predict disease based on genetics and family history, which allow them to act by providing preventative care. As a pastor, when you see data indicating your members are at risk of divorce, you can act on that data by planning sermons that focus on building stronger relationships or promoting marriage support groups.

You can access and use big data for your church today

There are many ways to collect data to understand the needs of your congregation and community. Here’s a few tools you can use today.

Use analytics from social media to know more about your following
There are many ways to collect and analyze data from social media. Facebook has Insights and Twitter has Analytics. More tools are available through Linkedin, Instagram and other social media channels.

Surveys and assessments give you first party information about your people

Many churches use surveys to assess the needs of their members. These can be done through software like SurveyMonkey or SurveyGizmo to assess the spiritual and temporal needs of your congregants.

Some churches find it helpful to collect data through formal assessments. Data can be collected in meetings, private interviews or detailed reports from church leaders.

Demographic reports tell you information about ages, income and more

Demographics can provide a lot of insight into your community. Through these reports, you can often access religious affiliation, marital status, household income and the ages of residents.

Third party data vendors create models that predict people's likelihood to get divorced (and much more!)

While some data can be collected from individual sources, there are services that gather, sort and provide data for their clients on a much larger scale, searching millions in their databases and producing thousands of data points per person for analysis. This information can be used to create predictive models of behavior. That means, you'll be able to know things like:

. A specific person's likelihood to get divorced

. If your congregation needs support when it comes to money

If you decide to use a data analytics platform, make sure you select one that corresponds with the data you need to reach your local community and congregants, and one that also provides a high degree of privacy. More about that in a minute.

What about privacy?

When you use big data and analytics you need to keep those details private.

When you work with a data analytics platform, all identifying information is kept private. The data is processed, scrubbed of any personal details, and then returned to you with only relevant information.

Churches that take advantage of modern tools to know their people and match their approach based on those insights give themselves the best opportunity to grow

It’s important to remember that big data is predictive, not prescriptive. It should organize known ideas, habits, demographics and activities then allow you to organize the information to represent the whole and act on it. Churches that use the power of big data in this way are able to predict struggles, pain points and in general, know more about their congregants and community. When they use that information to tailor their message, they’ll see long-term engagement that leads to growth.

As Carey Nieuwhof explains,

“I’m trying to read the minds of the people in the audience, in the congregation every week and I’m trying to think through the minds of a church person, of a non-church person, someone on the verge of divorce, someone who’s single … You run your message through a lot of filters, but with big data, you can actually know.”

Using big data in your church is about understanding your congregation’s needs and then matching those needs with relevant solutions. As you learn more, you can match more accurately and take a proactive approach to ministry.

Get the Guide to Big Data and Church

Download the E-Book and learn how to activate the power of big data to grow your church.

Get the E-Book

A particularly egregious example of the unbiblical drivel promoted by Gloo is the following, by Josh Hansen, from March 19, 2017 (originally dated February 17, 2017) (bold, links in original):

What Can Your Church Learn from Uber?

The World is Changing...

Our world is changing. Rapidly. Constantly. Exponentially. Technology is changing the very way we interact as businesses and organizations, as communities and individuals.

Consider some of the fastest growing companies of today.

(Uber, airbnb, alibaba)

The largest ride share company in the world is a mobile-based platform called Uber, a company which possesses no cars. Likewise, the largest hospitality company in the world owns no real estate, and it runs on a platform by the name of Airbnb. The largest retail company in the world, one that has revolutionized ecommerce, has no true inventory as a result of the platform it runs on—Alibaba.

While each of these companies are branded organizations with budgets and staff, they all function on platforms upon which the entire mission and work of their businesses—their core interactions—are provided by non-staff people.

In Uber’s case, their core interaction as a business is to connect ordinary people with rides to people who need them. Uber identified an incredibly untapped energy source on both sides of their equation. On one side, people desired to earn additional income and owned a vehicle from which they could do so. On the other side of the equation, people who didn’t have access to a vehicle wanted a seamless, simple and cheap way to catch a ride.

(Uber platform)

Their platform is what enables this core interaction to happen.

How do platforms do it?

To simplify the corporate structure of each of these companies, they are all just platforms. High functioning and complex, yes, but still platforms.

Platforms are organizations based on enabling value-creating interactions between external producers and consumers.

The most successful platforms today are leveraging digital technology to match the right producers to the right consumers. Platforms provide additional tools to reduce the friction that is commonly present in these interactions.

(value)

Ratings & Reviews → decrease the likelihood that you’ll get an unprofessional drive

Location → GPS makes it easier for your driver to find you, and you find them

Time to Arrival → no more wondering when your driver will pick you up

Directions → no more pointing over the shoulder, his phone tells him where to go

Payment → you know the price before your ride, and tips are included

(feedback)

Uber uses technology to remove friction at every point in the process, making the ride more efficient and enjoyable.

Platforms are changing the way we connect with each other, changing the way we exchange value and helping us do things better, smarter and at scale.

They create a space for anyone and everyone to be equipped to contribute to a primary, unifying mission—a core interaction.

Your church is a platform

There’s a common phrase spoken within Christian circles that you’ve likely heard before: “The Church is God’s plan A to carry out His mission, and He has no plan B.” Jesus laid out a clear mission for His Church at the end of His time on earth; a mission most call the Great Commission:

“All authority on heaven and earth has been given to Me. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations.” —Matthew 28:18

Your church is an organization with a building, budget and staff, similar to Uber. And, like Uber, your church is made up of a number of ordinary people committed to a unified community. The mission for your church members—your core interaction—is to make disciples of Jesus, and your church is the platform through which this mission is carried out.

So what can your church learn from Uber? Uber founded its success on the ability of its platform to activate ordinary people to contribute to the core interaction of its business, i.e. providing a ride.

This core interaction is not primarily provided by the people Uber employs. Its employees primarily provide support for the platform to continue functioning so that every day people can be further equipped to carry out the core interaction of the company.

Your church functions in the exact same way. Your staff are set in place primarily to equip the congregation to carry out the mission—the core interaction—of your church.

(Leadership, Small Groups, Community)

“And He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” —Ephesians 4:11-12

God designed and intended for the structure of the church, in its organized, local context, to function as a platform where you, the full-time ministers, equip the lay members to make disciples.

The Barrier to Your Platform

We realize that this is likely one of the biggest obstacles you wrestle with. I’d assume that the majority of your congregation either explicitly or implicitly believes that making disciples should primarily be your job since you work in full-time ministry.

Our American church culture has made this idea so embedded into our perception of what church is that even full-time ministers fall into a line of thought that the core interaction of your church is to have people show up on Sunday mornings and fill seats in your small groups.

But find encouragement that you do not carry the weight of this mission alone. You provide the platform to equip these lay men and women in your local church to be the ones making disciples of Jesus in their everyday interactions with people.

(discipleship)

Just as Uber found their success, we want to help your church scale the platform you have to activate anyone and everyone in your congregation to carry out your mission and make disciples.

Leveraging Your Platform

We believe with the right technology in place, your church can scalably leverage your resources and staff to better equip your people in carrying out the mission. We dream of a church environment where ordinary members are activated to be the church and make disciples.

So what would this kind of technology platform look like? What could it provide for your church? What core interaction could it help you scale?

We've created the Discipleship Planner to help you plan where you can strategically leverage your church's platform for your core interaction. Click below to access this free resource for your church today.

Start Planning Your Platform Strategy

Let's just see how sound Uber's practices and results are. As reported by Emel Akan in The Epoch Times, April 27, 2017 (updated April 28, 2017) (bold, links in original):

Uber is losing money faster than any other Silicon Valley startup. The ride-hailing company does not own cars or other fixed assets, but it is valued higher than both General Motors and Ford.

So what makes this cash-burning machine the most valuable private company in the world?

According to transportation industry expert Hubert Horan, Uber’s whopping valuation reflects the anticipation that it would one day drive all incumbent taxi and limo companies out of business.

“It is well on the way to achieving that objective in many markets,” Horan said, in a report.

But Uber lacks the competitive advantage and economies of scale that are required to achieve profitability, hence its business model is entirely different from other giant tech companies, like Amazon.

Horan said Uber’s rapid growth and industry dominance have been “entirely artificial, powered by its predatory investor subsidies.”

The ride-hailing company, which operates in nearly 75 markets, more than doubled its gross bookings and recorded $6.5 billion in revenue last year, according to a Bloomberg report.

However, it announced a massive $3.8 billion loss in 2016, including $1 billion from China where Uber sold its business to rival Didi Chuxing.

Uber has churned through at least $8 billion since its launch in 2009, according to Bloomberg.

The company lost nearly $1 billion in the last quarter of 2016—a massive amount for one quarter and unprecedented for a startup, according to experts.

Despite record losses, the company has managed to raise $13 billion from investors and reached a valuation of $69 billion.
Uber’s model is simple and replicable, but experts say its success is dependent on its ability to convince the world that it is a highly efficient operator that will rapidly grow into profitability.

But the company is far from breaking even, according to Horan.

“If you look at their economics, you can’t find any basis for expecting financial results to dramatically improve, much less close the $3 billion gap to break even,” Horan wrote in an email. “They’ve already cut driver pay quite a lot and can’t find much more savings there.”

Uber drivers used to receive 80 percent of each ride’s fare, but recent financial data shows a significant drop in that share.

Uber has announced that it still has $7 billion cash on hand and an untapped $2.3 billion credit facility. The company does not seem to need new capital in the short term.

The Pursuit of Power

Many users consider Uber better than traditional taxis when it comes to service quality, including driver courtesy and professionalism, car cleanliness, and availability at peak times.

But these service advantages are achieved through investor funds subsidizing the drivers.

Uber’s below-cost pricing is used as a tool to beat its competitors. The ride-hailing giant sharply cuts its prices when a competitor enters the market, incurring substantial losses until it drives out the rival from the market, experts say. Recently, taxi drivers and companies Yellow Cab and American Cab filed lawsuits in California against Uber for predatory pricing.

When raising funds from investors, Uber insists on special terms and restrictions, according to media reports. For example, the company does not allow investors to put money into competitors, like Lyft.

Uber’s investors include big Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Goldman Sachs, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Blackrock. The company also raised $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund last year.

Uber’s pursuit of industry dominance is the only way to deliver decent returns to investors, according to Horan.

The Silicon Valley venture capital community may not earn returns on their $13 billion investment without the “ability to exploit anti-competitive market power,” Horan said in his report.

“Uber’s objective is not merely a dominant market position, but a full control of the laws and regulations governing the urban car service industry,” he noted.

He believes Uber’s predatory tactics are a big concern for the transportation industry. However, nothing can be done “until there is a greater awareness that Uber’s business model is based on subsidizing prices and service levels to drive more efficient companies out of business so they could achieve quasi-monopoly market power,” he said.

Uber has run into many crises recently, including claims of sexual harassment, competitor sabotage, journalist intimidation, and a toxic corporate culture, which has resulted in at least nine top executive departures in recent months.

The company also came under fire in March for using a tool called Greyball, which allows Uber to avoid authorities in markets where its service is illegal or faces resistance from law enforcement.

“Most people assume Uber is a highly efficient, strong, and viable company—they incorrectly think these ‘cultural issues’ are anomalies that can be fixed. They can’t be fixed,” wrote Horan in the email.

As reported by Mike Isaac in The New York Times, February 22, 2017:

SAN FRANCISCO — When new employees join Uber, they are asked to subscribe to 14 core company values, including making bold bets, being “obsessed” with the customer, and “always be hustlin’.” The ride-hailing service particularly emphasizes “meritocracy,” the idea that the best and brightest will rise to the top based on their efforts, even if it means stepping on toes to get there.

Those values have helped propel Uber to one of Silicon Valley’s biggest success stories. The company is valued at close to $70 billion by private investors and now operates in more than 70 countries.

Yet the focus on pushing for the best result has also fueled what current and former Uber employees describe as a Hobbesian environment at the company, in which workers are sometimes pitted against one another and where a blind eye is turned to infractions from top performers.

Interviews with more than 30 current and former Uber employees, as well as reviews of internal emails, chat logs and tape-recorded meetings, paint a picture of an often unrestrained workplace culture. Among the most egregious accusations from employees, who either witnessed or were subject to incidents and who asked to remain anonymous because of confidentiality agreements and fear of retaliation: One Uber manager groped female co-workers’ breasts at a company retreat in Las Vegas. A director shouted a homophobic slur at a subordinate during a heated confrontation in a meeting. Another manager threatened to beat an underperforming employee’s head in with a baseball bat.

Until this week, this culture was only whispered about in Silicon Valley. Then on Sunday, Susan Fowler, an engineer who left Uber in December, published a blog post about her time at the company. She detailed a history of discrimination and sexual harassment by her managers, which she said was shrugged off by Uber’s human resources department. Ms. Fowler said the culture was stoked — and even fostered — by those at the top of the company.

“It seemed like every manager was fighting their peers and attempting to undermine their direct supervisor so that they could have their direct supervisor’s job,” Ms. Fowler wrote. “No attempts were made by these managers to hide what they were doing: They boasted about it in meetings, told their direct reports about it, and the like.”

Travis Kalanick, Uber’s chief executive, has taken several steps since a former employee’s accusations of discrimination and sexual harassment by managers.

Her revelations have spurred hand-wringing over how unfriendly Silicon Valley workplaces can be to women and provoked an internal crisis at Uber. The company’s chief executive, Travis Kalanick, has opened an internal investigation into the accusations and has brought in the board member Arianna Huffington and the former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. to look into harassment issues and the human resources department.

To contain the fallout, Mr. Kalanick also began more disclosure. On Monday, he said that 15.1 percent of Uber’s engineering, product management and scientist roles were filled by women, and that those numbers had not changed substantively over the past year.

Mr. Kalanick also held a 90-minute all-hands meeting on Tuesday, during which he and other executives were besieged with dozens of questions and pleas from employees who were aghast at — or strongly identified with — Ms. Fowler’s story and demanded change.

In what was described by five attendees as an emotional moment, and according to a video of the meeting reviewed by The New York Times, Mr. Kalanick apologized to employees for leading the company and the culture to this point. “What I can promise you is that I will get better every day,” he said. “I can tell you that I am authentically and fully dedicated to getting to the bottom of this.”

Some Uber employees said Mr. Kalanick’s speedy efforts were positive. “I am pleased with how quickly Travis has responded to this,” Aimee Lucido, an Uber software engineer, wrote in a blog post. “We are better situated to handle this sort of problem than we have ever been in the past.”

As chief executive, Mr. Kalanick has long set the tone for Uber. Under him, Uber has taken a pugnacious approach to business, flouting local laws and criticizing competitors in a race to expand as quickly as possible. Mr. Kalanick, 40, has made pointed displays of ego: In a GQ article in 2014, he referred to Uber as “Boob-er” because of how the company helped him attract women.

That tone has been echoed in Uber’s workplace. At least two former Uber workers said they had notified Thuan Pham, the company’s chief technical officer, of workplace harassment at the hands of managers and colleagues in 2016. One also emailed Mr. Kalanick.

Uber also faces at least three lawsuits in at least two countries from former employees alleging sexual harassment or verbal abuse at the hands of managers, according to legal documents reviewed by The Times. Other current and former employees said they were considering legal action against the company.

Liane Hornsey, Uber’s chief human resources officer, said in a statement, “We are totally committed to healing wounds of the past and building a better workplace culture for everyone.”

Uber’s aggressive culture began with its 2009 founding, when Mr. Kalanick and another founder, Garrett Camp, created a start-up that would let customers hail a cab with little more than a few taps of their smartphone — bypassing many of the headaches people had with the taxi industry. Mr. Kalanick also started putting into place what eventually became Uber’s 14 core values, inspired by the leadership principles at one of the biggest public tech companies, Amazon.

To grow quickly, Uber kept its structure decentralized, emphasizing autonomy among regional offices. General managers are encouraged to “be themselves,” another of Uber’s core values, and are empowered to make decisions without intense supervision from the company’s San Francisco headquarters. The top priority: Achieve growth and revenue targets.

While Uber is now the dominant ride-hailing company in the United States, and is rapidly growing in South America, India and other countries, its explosive growth has come at a cost internally. As Uber hired more employees, its internal politics became more convoluted. Getting ahead, employees said, often involved undermining departmental leaders or colleagues.

Arianna Huffington, an Uber board member, was brought in to look into harassment issues and the human resources department. Workers like Ms. Fowler who went to human resources with their problems said they were often left stranded. She and a half-dozen others said human resources often made excuses for top performers because of their ability to improve the health of the business. Occasionally, problematic managers who were the subject of numerous complaints were shuffled around different regions; firings were less common.

One group appeared immune to internal scrutiny, the current and former employees said. Members of the group, called the A-Team and composed of executives who were personally close to Mr. Kalanick, were shielded from much accountability over their actions.

One member of the A-Team was Emil Michael, senior vice president for business, who was caught up in a public scandal over comments he made in 2014 about digging into the private lives of journalists who opposed the company. Mr. Kalanick defended Mr. Michael, saying he believed Mr. Michael could learn from his mistakes.

Uber’s aggressive workplace culture spilled out at a global all-hands meeting in late 2015 in Las Vegas, where the company hired Beyoncé to perform at the rooftop bar of the Palms Hotel. Between bouts of drinking and gambling, Uber employees used cocaine in the bathrooms at private parties, said three attendees, and a manager groped several female employees. (The manager was terminated within 12 hours.) One employee hijacked a private shuttle bus, filled it with friends and took it for a joy ride, the attendees said.

At the Las Vegas outing, Mr. Kalanick also held a companywide lecture reviewing Uber’s 14 core values, the attendees said. During the lecture, Mr. Kalanick pulled onstage employees who he believed exemplified each of the values. One of those was Mr. Michael.

Since Ms. Fowler’s blog post, several Uber employees have said they are considering leaving the company. Some are waiting until their equity compensation from Uber, which is restricted stock units, is vested. Others said they had started sending résumés to competitors.

Still other employees said they were hopeful that Uber could change. Mr. Kalanick has promised to deliver a diversity report to better detail the number of women and minorities who work at Uber, and the company is holding listening sessions with employees.

At the Tuesday all-hands meeting, Ms. Huffington, the Uber board member, also vowed that the company would make another change. According to attendees and video of the meeting, Ms. Huffington said there would no longer be hiring of “brilliant jerks.”

As reported by Mr. Isaac in The New York Times, March 1, 2017:

SAN FRANCISCO — Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber, apologized on Tuesday after a video showing him in a verbal altercation with a driver for the ride-hailing company became public.

In the video, recorded this month and reported on earlier by Bloomberg, Mr. Kalanick is seen in the back seat of an Uber car with two women. When they reach their destination, he begins talking with the driver, Fawzi Kamel.

During the exchange, Mr. Kamel complains about what he says is Uber’s history of lowering earnings for drivers, and Mr. Kalanick says Mr. Kamel should “take responsibility” for his own problems.

The conversation quickly becomes heated, with Mr. Kalanick using obscenities and generally being dismissive of Mr. Kamel’s complaints.

Hours after the video became public, Mr. Kalanick delivered an apology in the form of an email to employees addressing Mr. Kamel, “as well as the driver and rider community, and to the Uber team.”

“To say that I am ashamed is an extreme understatement,” Mr. Kalanick wrote in the email, which the company later posted to its public blog. “My job as your leader is to lead, and that starts with behaving in a way that makes us all proud. That is not what I did, and it cannot be explained away.”

The company said it had reached out to Mr. Kamel and hoped to arrange a conversation between him and Mr. Kalanick...

...The apology issued by Mr. Kalanick on Tuesday is the first instance in which he has admitted significant problems with his hard-charging leadership style.

“It’s clear this video is a reflection of me — and the criticism we’ve received is a stark reminder that I must fundamentally change as a leader and grow up,” Mr. Kalanick wrote in his email. “This is the first time I’ve been willing to admit that I need leadership help and I intend to get it.”

Mr. Kalanick did not specify in the email what sort of help he would seek.

As reported by Mr. Isaac in The New York Times, March 3, 2017:

SAN FRANCISCO — Uber has for years engaged in a worldwide program to deceive the authorities in markets where its low-cost ride-hailing service was resisted by law enforcement or, in some instances, had been banned.

The program, involving a tool called Greyball, uses data collected from the Uber app and other techniques to identify and circumvent officials who were trying to clamp down on the ride-hailing service. Uber used these methods to evade the authorities in cities like Boston, Paris and Las Vegas, and in countries like Australia, China and South Korea.

Greyball was part of a program called VTOS, short for “violation of terms of service,” which Uber created to root out people it thought were using or targeting its service improperly. The program, including Greyball, began as early as 2014 and remains in use, predominantly outside the United States. Greyball was approved by Uber’s legal team.

Greyball and the VTOS program were described to The New York Times by four current and former Uber employees, who also provided documents. The four spoke on the condition of anonymity because the tools and their use are confidential and because of fear of retaliation by Uber.

Uber’s use of Greyball was recorded on video in late 2014, when Erich England, a code enforcement inspector in Portland, Ore., tried to hail an Uber car downtown in a sting operation against the company.

At the time, Uber had just started its ride-hailing service in Portland without seeking permission from the city, which later declared the service illegal. To build a case against the company, officers like Mr. England posed as riders, opening the Uber app to hail a car and watching as miniature vehicles on the screen made their way toward the potential fares.

But unknown to Mr. England and other authorities, some of the digital cars they saw in the app did not represent actual vehicles. And the Uber drivers they were able to hail also quickly canceled. That was because Uber had tagged Mr. England and his colleagues — essentially Greyballing them as city officials — based on data collected from the app and in other ways. The company then served up a fake version of the app, populated with ghost cars, to evade capture...

...In a statement, Uber said, “This program denies ride requests to users who are violating our terms of service — whether that’s people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret ‘stings’ meant to entrap drivers.”...

...Uber, which lets people hail rides using a smartphone app, operates multiple types of services, including a luxury Black Car offering in which drivers are commercially licensed. But an Uber service that many regulators have had problems with is the lower-cost version, known in the United States as UberX.

UberX essentially lets people who have passed a background check and vehicle inspection become Uber drivers quickly. In the past, many cities have banned the service and declared it illegal.

That is because the ability to summon a noncommercial driver — which is how UberX drivers using private vehicles are typically categorized — was often unregulated. In barreling into new markets, Uber capitalized on this lack of regulation to quickly enlist UberX drivers and put them to work before local regulators could stop them.

After the authorities caught on to what was happening, Uber and local officials often clashed. Uber has encountered legal problems over UberX in cities including Austin, Tex., Philadelphia and Tampa, Fla., as well as internationally. Eventually, agreements were reached under which regulators developed a legal framework for the low-cost service.

That approach has been costly. Law enforcement officials in some cities have impounded vehicles or issued tickets to UberX drivers, with Uber generally picking up those costs on the drivers’ behalf. The company has estimated thousands of dollars in lost revenue for every vehicle impounded and ticket received.

Uber’s Greyball tool was developed to weed out riders thought to be using its service improperly. This is where the VTOS program and the use of the Greyball tool came in. When Uber moved into a new city, it appointed a general manager to lead the charge. This person, using various technologies and techniques, would try to spot enforcement officers.

One technique involved drawing a digital perimeter, or “geofence,” around the government offices on a digital map of a city that Uber was monitoring. The company watched which people were frequently opening and closing the app — a process known internally as eyeballing — near such locations as evidence that the users might be associated with city agencies.

Other techniques included looking at a user’s credit card information and determining whether the card was tied directly to an institution like a police credit union.

Enforcement officials involved in large-scale sting operations meant to catch Uber drivers would sometimes buy dozens of cellphones to create different accounts. To circumvent that tactic, Uber employees would go to local electronics stores to look up device numbers of the cheapest mobile phones for sale, which were often the ones bought by city officials working with budgets that were not large.

In all, there were at least a dozen or so signifiers in the VTOS program that Uber employees could use to assess whether users were regular new riders or probably city officials.

If such clues did not confirm a user’s identity, Uber employees would search social media profiles and other information available online. If users were identified as being linked to law enforcement, Uber Greyballed them by tagging them with a small piece of code that read “Greyball” followed by a string of numbers.

When someone tagged this way called a car, Uber could scramble a set of ghost cars in a fake version of the app for that person to see, or show that no cars were available. Occasionally, if a driver accidentally picked up someone tagged as an officer, Uber called the driver with instructions to end the ride.

Uber employees said the practices and tools were born in part out of safety measures meant to protect drivers in some countries. In France, India and Kenya, for instance, taxi companies and workers targeted and attacked new Uber drivers.

“They’re beating the cars with metal bats,” the singer Courtney Love posted on Twitter from an Uber car in Paris at a time of clashes between the company and taxi drivers in 2015. Ms. Love said that protesters had ambushed her Uber ride and had held her driver hostage. “This is France? I’m safer in Baghdad.”

Uber has said it was also at risk from tactics used by taxi and limousine companies in some markets. In Tampa, for instance, Uber cited collusion between the local transportation authority and taxi companies in fighting ride-hailing services.

In those areas, Greyballing started as a way to scramble the locations of UberX drivers to prevent competitors from finding them. Uber said that was still the tool’s primary use.

But as Uber moved into new markets, its engineers saw that the same methods could be used to evade law enforcement. Once the Greyball tool was put in place and tested, Uber engineers created a playbook with a list of tactics and distributed it to general managers in more than a dozen countries on five continents.

At least 50 people inside Uber knew about Greyball, and some had qualms about whether it was ethical or legal. Greyball was approved by Uber’s legal team, led by Salle Yoo, the company’s general counsel. Ryan Graves, an early hire who became senior vice president of global operations and a board member, was also aware of the program.

Ms. Yoo and Mr. Graves did not respond to requests for comment.

Outside legal specialists said they were uncertain about the legality of the program. Greyball could be considered a violation of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or possibly intentional obstruction of justice, depending on local laws and jurisdictions, said Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University who also writes for The New York Times...

...On Friday, Marietje Schaake, a member of the European Parliament for the Dutch Democratic Party in the Netherlands, wrote that she had written to the European Commission asking, among other things, if it planned to investigate the legality of Greyball.

To date, Greyballing has been effective. In Portland on that day in late 2014, Mr. England, the enforcement officer, did not catch an Uber, according to local reports.

And two weeks after Uber began dispatching drivers in Portland, the company reached an agreement with local officials that said that after a three-month suspension, UberX would eventually be legally available in the city.

As reported by Solomon Israel of CBC News, March 7, 2017 (updated March 8, 2017):

Uber has used a clandestine software tool to dupe authorities in different cities around the world and prevent them from hailing Uber rides, according to a New York Times report.

It's called Greyball: a secret method used by Uber to track and evade unfriendly authorities in cities around the world.

The ride-hailing service won't confirm whether it used that clandestine tool to deceive regulatory and law enforcement authorities in Canadian cities...

...Uber's Canadian office offered no comment in response to requests from CBC News.

"The City of Toronto was successful in undertaking enforcement prior to Uber being licensed," said Tracey Cook, executive director of municipal licensing and standards for the City of Toronto, who added that the city's July 2016 bylaw regulating Uber and other private transportation companies would prohibit Uber "from obstructing information with regard to the accounts."
Montreal authorities have no proof that Greyball was ever used by Uber in that city, said Renaud Beauchemin, a spokesperson for the Bureau du taxi de Montreal.

"Using this software or a similar technology could be considered as obstruction to the authorities," he said.

Through a spokesperson, the city of Edmonton said it has "no knowledge of the use of this technology by Uber from an enforcement perspective."...

As reported by Mr. Isaac in The New York Times, May 4, 2017:

SAN FRANCISCO — Uber is the subject of a United States Department of Justice inquiry over a program that it used to deceive regulators who were trying to shut down its ride-hailing service.

The inquiry concerns Uber’s use of a software tool called Greyball, which the company developed in part to aid entrance into new markets where its service was not permitted. The tool allowed Uber to deploy what was essentially a fake version of its app to evade law enforcement agencies that were cracking down on its service...

...The federal inquiry was disclosed in a transportation audit conducted by the City of Portland, Ore., published last week. In the audit, Portland officials said they had been notified by the United States attorney’s office for the Northern District of California about the existence of the inquiry. The City of Portland said it was cooperating with the inquiry.

Reuters reported on Thursday that the inquiry was a criminal investigation. The United States attorney’s office for the Northern District of California generally conducts criminal investigations, and some of the laws that Uber may have broken carry criminal penalties. A federal inquiry often does not result in any charges being filed...

As reported by Greg Bensinger of The Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2017:

Uber Technologies Inc. expects to conclude a report soon on claims of sexual harassment and sexism that it hopes will close a damaging chapter in its history. But it also could bring even greater scrutiny for the troubled ride-hailing company.

The report—expected next week—will be the culmination of an investigation triggered in February when former software engineer Susan Fowler Rigetti claimed in a nearly 3,000-word blog post that Uber management had ignored multiple complaints from her and other female workers of sexual harassment and sexism by their managers.

The outcome carries significant stakes for the world’s most valuable startup. Some employees say the allegations and the three-month investigation, along with other recent controversies, have been painful distractions and threaten Uber’s ability to attract talent. Employees will be looking for information about how Uber’s leaders handled workplace issues and what changes the report might trigger. Others who will be contemplating the results: candidates in Uber’s search for its first-ever chief operating officer to assist CEO Travis Kalanick.

As reported by Subrat Patnaik of Reuters, June 1, 2017:

Uber Technologies Inc said its head of finance is leaving, and the privately held ride-hailing company also said that its first-quarter loss narrowed substantially from the prior quarter, putting it on a path toward profitability.

Head of finance Gautam Gupta is leaving in July to join another startup in San Francisco, the company said, making Gupta the latest high-profile executive to leave Uber.

Uber, which has been rocked by several high-level executive departures in the past few months as it grapples with a series of controversies, has been looking for a chief operating officer to help change its now-notorious "bro" culture.

Gupta's exit sets the stage for a second major executive search, now for a chief financial officer who has public company experience.

About a dozen top executives have left Uber since February.

The company on Tuesday fired the technology whiz it had hired to lead its self-driving unit, Anthony Levandowski, after he failed to comply with a court order to hand over documents at the center of a legal dispute between Uber and Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Waymo unit.

Uber on Wednesday said its net loss in the first quarter, excluding employee stock compensation and other items, narrowed to $708 million, from $991 million in the fourth quarter.

As a private company, Uber does not report its financial results publicly, but at times it has confirmed figures reported in the media.

Uber said its first-quarter revenue rose 18 percent to $3.4 billion from the fourth quarter.

"The narrowing of our losses in the first quarter puts us on a good trajectory towards profitability," an Uber spokesperson said in an email...

As reported by Ryan Grenoble of the Huffington Post, June 21, 2017:

The wheels finally fell off.

Travis Kalanick is stepping down from his post as CEO of Uber, effective immediately.

Kalanick’s exit came after a shareholder revolt reportedly made it untenable for him to stay at the company he founded in 2009. Investors called for the change in leadership in a letter that was delivered to Kalanick in Chicago and obtained by Times reporter Mike Isaac...

...Uber suffered several turbulent months in early 2017. The rise of #DeleteUber in response to the company appearing to break a taxi picket line in early February drove more than 200,000 people to delete the Uber App from their phone in protest, and was only quelled once Kalanick announced he’d resign from President Donald Trump’s economic advisory council.

That movement regained steam, however, as lurid claims of a toxic work culture surfaced, courtesy of a tell-all blog by a former employee.

Former Uber engineer Susan Fowler penned the blog in late February, recalling her experiences with rampant sexual harassment at the company, including being solicited for sex by male superiors and stonewalled by HR for reporting their conduct.

Two of Uber’s earliest investors, Mitch and Freada Kapor, spoke out at the time and urged the company to switch gears.

“Uber’s outsize success in terms of growth of market share, revenues and valuation are impressive, but can never excuse a culture plagued by disrespect, exclusionary cliques, lack of diversity, and tolerance for bullying and harassment of every form,” the two wrote.

“Uber has had countless opportunities to do the right thing,” they added. “We feel we have hit a dead end.”

Kalanick pledged to clean up the company culture in response. He asked former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to lead an inquiry, and got former Huffington Post editor-in-chief (and Uber board member) Arianna Huffington to pitch in.

Yet another crisis developed soon after: Waymo, a Google-founded competitor, sued Uber, claiming the company had stolen technology essential to the development of its self-driving cars.

Uber competitor Lyft continued to pick up steam all the while...

As reported by Reuters, September 20, 2017:

Alphabet Waymo unit is seeking about $2.6 billion from Uber for the alleged theft of one of several trade secrets in a lawsuit over self-driving cars, a lawyer for Uber said on Wednesday.

Uber Technologies Inc attorney Bill Carmody disclosed the figure in a hearing in federal court in San Francisco, where both companies are discussing whether a trial in the case will begin next month.

Waymo has asserted claims that Uber stole several of its trade secrets.

The total amount of Waymo's damages request was not publicly disclosed at the hearing on Wednesday.

Waymo claimed in a lawsuit earlier this year that former engineer Anthony Levandowski downloaded more than 14,000 confidential files before leaving to set up a self-driving truck company, which Uber acquired soon after.

Uber has denied using any of Waymo's trade secrets.

Waymo's allegations have already led Uber to fire Levandowski, who had directed Uber's efforts in the nascent yet pivotal field of self-driving cars...

As reported by Nick Statt of The Verge, September 22, 2017 (links in original):

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi sent a sobering, self-reflective email to employees today following the London transport authority’s decision not to renew the company’s license. In what is an uncharacteristic move for a company plagued by rampant sexism and regulatory abuse, much of which was a product of the leadership style of former chief exec and founder Travis Kalanick, Khosrowshahi told Uber employees that “there is a high cost to a bad reputation.”...

...“Irrespective of whether we did everything that is being said about us in London today (to be clear, I don’t think we did), it really matters what people think of us,” Khosrowshahi wrote, “especially in a global business like ours, where actions in one part of the world can have serious consequences in another.” It’s clear now that Uber is taking these controversies as teachable moments, and that a ban in a city as large and instrumental to its business as London could push it to improve its systemic issues...

...Those issues include Uber’s use of Greyball, custom software which allowed the company to dodge law enforcement and regulatory officials from using the full app for potential sting operations. Transport for London (TfL), the city’s transportation authority, cited Greyball, among other offenses, when it declined to renew Uber’s license, saying the company’s “approach and conduct demonstrate a lack of corporate responsibility in relation to a number of issues which have potential public safety and security implications.”

“Going forward, it’s critical that we act with integrity in everything we do, and learn how to be a better partner to every city we operate in,” Khosrowshahi concludes. “That doesn’t mean abandoning our principles — we will vigorously appeal TfL’s decision — but rather building trust through our actions and our behavior. In doing so, we will show that Uber is not just a really great product, but a really great company that is meaningful contributing to society, beyond its business and its bottom line.”

As reported by James Titcomb of the London Daily Telegraph, November 24, 2017 (links in original):

Uber's new chief executive, who is trying to repair the company's battered reputation, has known about the hack that lost 57 million passengers' and drivers' details for over two months.

Dara Khosrowshahi was told about the breach shortly after taking charge of the company in September, according to reports. It also informed SoftBank, the the Japanese tech giant that is close to an investment of up to $10bn (£7.5bn), three weeks ago.

Uber revealed on Tuesday night that hackers accessed the accounts of 50 million passengers and 7 million drivers in October 2016. It learned about the incident a year ago and paid the hackers $100,000 to delete the data and keep quiet.

The Information Commissioner has since confirmed that the personal data of British users was accessed, and has warned that the company could be fined over the matter.

The company has sought to draw a line under the news, sacking its chief security officer Joe Sullivan and coming clean about the breach, which happened under the watch of its former chief executive Travis Kalanick. But the revelation that its top brass has known for two months, reported in the Wall Street Journal, is likely to raise questions about whether customers should have been notified earlier...

As reported by Zeeshan Aleem of vox.com, December 20, 2017 (links in original):

The European Union’s top court has ruled that Uber should be regulated like a taxi company, a move that could have major implications for how the popular ride-hailing app does business in Europe — and raises questions about its future in the US.

The European Court of Justice issued the ruling in a case brought by Barcelona cab drivers, who argued that Uber had an unfair advantage over them because it wasn’t regulated as heavily.

The court rejected Uber’s argument that it is a tech business whose main function is matching passengers with drivers. Instead, it ruled that the company should be classified as a transportation service — and that it needs to be regulated like one.

That ruling, which can’t be appealed, means that the company could face new licensing fees and also raises questions over whether the company could be obligated to provide employee benefits to drivers...

...With a valuation of $70 billion, Uber is currently the most highly valued startup in the world. But its long-term reputation is in peril as it stumbles from controversy to controversy and struggles to shake public perception that it is a company that prefers to buck rules wherever it goes rather than follow them.

In September, London regulators banned Uber from operating in the city, arguing that the company demonstrated a “lack of corporate responsibility” tied to a number of its behaviors, such as failing to report sexual assault by its drivers and using lax background checks.

Uber is currently appealing that case in London courts and has the right to continue operating in the city until the appeals process is exhausted.

But should the company lose in court, it will suffer a massive blow: London is Uber’s largest European market and hosts some 40,000 licensed Uber drivers who serve more than 3 million customers...

...Denmark pushed Uber out of the country this spring after introducing new taxi laws

Uber also has a long history of controversy in the US. After it left Austin, Texas, in 2016 because of the city’s requirements for background checks on drivers, it teamed up with Lyft to spend millions lobbying state lawmakers and eventually convinced the Texas legislature to overrule the city. Uber returned to the city this year, but its return was met with anger from local officials.

Currently at least five states are planning to investigate Uber after it revealed this fall that it had paid hackers $100,000 to cover up a cyberattack that stole nearly 60 million people’s personal data from the company in 2016.

The Department of Justice is also currently looking into whether Uber has broken a US law against bribing foreign officials with payments that it made to officials in China, India, Indonesia, and elsewhere.

Given what has been revealed about Uber in 2017, one wonders why the Church Growth Movement promotes Uber as a model for churches to follow; it's hard to think of a company that has less in common with the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Uber has been around for only eight years, and it would come as no surprise to this blogger if it won't be around eight years from now. The true church of the Lord Jesus Christ, created by the Lord Himself, has been around for 2,000 years and will be around for eternity.