Jewish groups protest, praise U.S. Supreme Court's affirmation of high school football coach's right to lead post-game prayers

This has been a bad month in the United States for those who promote the idea of "Judeo-Christian" values, as recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have provoked responses that make it obvious that Judeo values are not necessarily Christian values. In 1962, Jewish organizations were opposed to mandated prayer as part of the public school day (see post below), resulting in the Supreme Court decision in Engel v. Vitale. In 2022, Jewish organizations are opposing voluntary prayer on the school grounds after football games, following another Supreme Court decision, 60 years and 2 days after the earlier ruling. As reported by Ron Kampeas of Jewish Telegraphic Agency, June 27, 2022 (links in original):

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Seattle-area football coach who lost his job after leading prayers on the field following his team’s victories, in a decision that could have ramifications for Jews in public schools and the military.

A number of Jewish groups say the 6-3 ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton, issued Monday, could roll back church-state separations that have protected schoolchildren from religious coercion for decades.

“This is a significant change in how we approach prayer in public schools, and one that will have a negative impact in particular on students of marginalized faiths and non-religious students,” said Rachel Robbins, the chairwoman of the Anti-Defamation League’s Civil Rights Committee. The ADL, which joined a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the school district, said it was “deeply disturbed” by the decision.

The expressions of concern came despite reassurances by Justice Neil Gorsuch that the ruling was in line with a famous 1992 Supreme Court decision in favor of a Rhode Island Jewish family who objected to clergy leading prayer at their children’s public school.

Writing for the court’s conservative majority, Gorsuch quoted from that decision, Lee v. Weisman, in which the court held “that religious beliefs and religious expression are too precious to be either proscribed or prescribed by the State.” The ruling Monday in favor of Joseph Kennedy, an assistant coach in the Bremerton, Washington, school district, Gorsuch wrote, similarly protects First Amendment religious freedoms.

Jewish groups were not buying it.

“The Court’s see-no-evil approach to the coach’s prayer will encourage those who seek to proselytize within the public schools to do so with the Court’s blessing,” said Marc Stern, the chief legal officer of the American Jewish Committee, which had joined a friend-of-the-court brief on the side of the school district.

“That is no advance for religious liberty,” Stern added.

The Bremerton case centered on the activities of Kennedy, who started out by praying alone at the 50-yard line and did not call on others to join him. But soon after, students and others started joining Kennedy in prayer, alarming the school district. It proposed alternatives, including allowing him to pray after the game, but he declined and continued to pray to increased media attention. The school district decided not to renew his contract.

The court concluded, essentially, that by preventing a Christian high school coach from praying, the school district had violated his civil rights no less than had it forced other children to pray.

“Here, a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a brief, quiet, personal religious observance,” Gorsuch said, emphasizing that Kennedy had not explicitly urged students to join him in prayer.

“It seems clear to us that Mr. Kennedy has demonstrated that his speech was private speech, not government speech,” Gorsuch wrote. “This case looks very different from those in which this Court has found prayer involving public school students to be problematically coercive,” he said, specifically citing Lee v. Weisman.

Lee v. Weisman involved a Baptist clergyman who said at a 1986 middle school graduation ceremony in Providence, “Please rise and praise Jesus for the accomplishments of these children today.”

Merith Weisman’s parents, Vivian, the assistant executive director at the local Jewish Community Center, and Daniel, a social work professor, were unnerved, and the prayer triggered a series of events and lawsuits that culminated in the landmark 1992 case.

That decision was 5-4. Antonin Scalia, the late conservative justice whom Gorsuch replaced, said for years it was wrongly decided, and the religious right agreed. President Donald Trump named three conservative justices, and with the new balance of power, the Supreme Court has in recent weeks ticked off a wish list for religious conservatives, from school choice to overturning abortion rights.

The AJC’s Stern said Gorsuch was cherry-picking quotes from the earlier decision to make his own opinion sound less far-reaching than it was.

“There’s a tendency to sanitize a practice, rip it out of its historical roots and look at it in splendid isolation, and so it [appears] not so terrible,” Stern said in an interview.

Kennedy, as an assistant coach, may not have the same power as the principal in the Rhode Island case who invited clergy, Stern said, but the coach still had coercive power over students, and it was disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

“Kids will do anything to get on a coach’s good side and get playing time,” Stern said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the liberal minority in the dissent, made a similar point, illustrating it with a photo of students surrounding Kennedy in prayer.

“Several parents reached out to the District saying that their children had participated in Kennedy’s prayers solely to avoid separating themselves from the rest of the team,” Sotomayor wrote. “No [Bremerton High School] students appeared to pray on the field after Kennedy’s suspension.”

The National Council of Jewish Women, also a signatory to a friend-of-the-court brief, said the latest decision was one in a series that eroded church-state separations, citing among others the recent decision directing the state of Maine to pay for religious schooling for students for whom reaching public schools is arduous.

“No student should have to choose between their religious freedom and being part of school activities,” Jody Rabhan, the group’s chief policy officer, said in a statement. “But today’s ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton could force children enrolled in public schools to do just that.”

Mikey Weinstein, the Jewish veteran who leads the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which advocates for religion-state separations in the military, said the ruling will undercut his years-long efforts to remove Christian prayers from military academy athletic events.

The decision “will serve to utterly and expeditiously destroy the precious wall separating church and state in our country and especially the U.S. military,” he said.

For once, I hope Mikey "Whine"stein is correct, in his assertion that the Supreme Court's ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District will undercut his anti-Christian efforts. Go here to see the text of the Court's ruling.

June 28, 2022 update: In contrast to liberal Jewish organizations, an Orthodox Jewish group is praising the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. As reported by Ron Kampeas of Jewish Telegraphic Agency, June 28, 2022 (links in original):

WASHINGTON — Agudath Israel of America praised the reversal of a judicial standard that came about as a result of a Supreme Court ruling backing a public high school football coach who prayed on the fifty-yard line.

Abba Cohen, the Washington director for the haredi Orthodox umbrella body, said the group was pleased that Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the decision for the court’s 6-3 conservative majority, did away with a decades-old standard for assessing whether a government authority violated church-state standards.

Cohen clarified later that this did not mean his organization was praising the entire ruling. “Agudath Israel has long expressed concern about and opposition to denominational public prayer and the proselytization in schools,” he said.

The “Lemon test,” stemming from the 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman decision, assesses whether a government action advances or inhibits religion. Orthodox groups have long said the test was overly restrictive.

“Rather than offering protection, ‘Lemon’ too often resulted in Establishment Clause hostility toward religion, which itself is constitutionally prohibited,” Cohen said. “The First Amendment is stronger with its demise.”

Gorsuch in his decision said the Lemon test should be superseded by more recent traditions that refer to “historical practices and understandings.”

“The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike,” Gorsuch wrote.

Monday’s ruling backed Joseph Kennedy, an assistant coach in the Seattle area who was let go from his job because he would not stop on-field prayers. The coach asserted, and the Court majority agreed, that his prayers were “private,” even though his players would join in. Jewish civil rights groups said the ruling put at risk a 1992 ruling banning clergy from praying in schools. That ruling, which the groups said protected children from proselytizers, was spurred by Jewish parents in Rhode Island.

The Orthodox Union, the umbrella body for Modern Orthodox groups and synagogues, declined to comment on Gorsuch’s decision, named Kennedy v. Bremerton School District.

Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), said he had mixed feelings about the ruling. Chabad has advocated for years for moments of silence in public schools, seeing them as a means for reflection and promoting more considered behavior.

But Shemtov said the coach’s Christian prayer was not quite the same. “A parochial prayer can present some real problems while a moment of silence is all but unassailable,” Shemtov said in an interview. A moment of silence “gives each individual the right to worship in the privacy of their own mind even in the presence of others.”

To deny the Jewish role in the crucifixion of Jesus is to deny the word of God

It's now fashionable in Christian circles to play down or virtually deny Jewish culpability in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. According to Aaron Fruh in Israel365 News, April 13, 2022:

Next week Christians around the globe will spend Good Friday in remembrance of the crucifixion of Jesus. As an Evangelical Christian it troubles me the lie the Jews killed Jesus is still believed by many Christians. Since the 2nd century when church father Justin Martyr proclaimed the Jews would collectively as a people bear the responsibility from generation to generation for killing Jesus, the charge of deicide (the murder of God) has been used by Christians to persecute Jews – think of the crusades, pogroms, expulsions, and ultimately the Holocaust. Though an attempt was made in Vatican II in the declaration of Nostra Aetate to put the lie to rest, it still festers like an infected sore. Bad habits are hard to break.

There are several factors in the gospel accounts and in the historical records that have been overlooked by Christians who still hold Jews responsible for killing Jesus. Here are three:

1. The Romans and only the Romans controlled capital punishment

During the time of Jesus, Israel was under the occupation of the Imperial Roman authority and was subjected to the policies of the Roman empire – including relinquishing the ability to pass down capital punishment upon criminals.

2. The Romans were brutal dictators

The Romans were swift and violent against any sign of Jewish uprising – including the hope of a Jewish messiah – and the reality of that threat was ever present. Jesus’ growing popularity among the Jewish people raised the possibility of Roman aggression to a critical level and the Jewish religious leaders were concerned that Rome – if threatened – might not only plunder the nation of Israel but also the holy temple (see John 11:47-48). This fear was realized in the coming years when Rome destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and drove most of the Jews out of Israel.

3. Pilate was not a saint

In some Christian traditions Pilate and his wife are both beautified as saints. Many Christians view Pilate as an innocent victim who was coerced by Jews into ordering the crucifixion of Jesus. By making Pilate a puppet of Jewish leaders, blaming Jews for the death of Jesus becomes more justifiable.

However, far from being a saint, Pilate was a ruthless barbarian who suppressed one Jewish uprising after another with reckless abandon. The Jewish philosopher Philo said this about Pilate’s reign of terror on the Jews: “…the briberies, the insults, the robberies, the outrages and wanton injuries, the executions without trial constantly repeated, the ceaseless and supremely grievous cruelty” (Philo, Embassy to Gaius 10.302).

So, who killed Jesus? According to all gospel accounts, Jesus died on a Roman cross. The fact is that it was Pilate who passed down the sentence of death on Jesus (Luke 23:24) and it was the Roman soldiers who drove the nails in his hands and feet and thrust the spear into his side.

Furthermore, according to Jesus’ own testimony no one could take his life because he gave it willingly, “No one takes it (my life) from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18). Further still, the entire Christian story of redemption is based on the belief that Jesus’ journey to a Roman cross was in the mind of God before time began declaring that Jesus was, “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). As well, Christian doctrine teaches that God’s purpose in the death of Jesus was to atone for the sin of humanity, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (II Corinthians 5:21).

With these facts in mind, why does the lie the Jews killed Jesus still have life? The lie continues to be immortalized by many Christians in order to place Christianity on a higher moral level than Judaism. By blaming Jews for Jesus’ death, Jesus becomes a non-Jew – a Christian in solidarity with other Christians in opposition to Judaism and Jews. The reality is that Jesus was killed by the Roman’s because he was a Jew.

This Good Friday as Christians solemnly remember the canceling of their sins through Jesus’ willing sacrifice may those in Christendom who continue to falsely blame Jews for the death of Jesus make it a time of humble thanksgiving rather than arrogant blame.

For Mr. Fruh to say that "the Jews killed Jesus" is a lie is itself a lie, clearly contradicted by the New Testament. In rebuttal to Mr. Fruh, I cite a previous post of mine, and submit for your approval the following account from the gospel according to Matthew--the gospel account that's most directed toward a Jewish audience--as well as comments by three Jewish leaders of the early Christian church who were either on the scene or in the area at the time:

When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death:
And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.
Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.
And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.
And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.
Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.
Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;
And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.
And Jesus stood before the governor: and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest.
And when he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing.
Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee?
And he answered him to never a word; insomuch that the governor marvelled greatly.
Now at that feast the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner, whom they would.
And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas.
Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?
For he knew that for envy they had delivered him.
When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.
But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.
The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas.
Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified.
And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified.
When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.
Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children. Matthew 27:1-25

Peter: But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:...
...Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:...
...Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ...
...But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you;
And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses...
...Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole...
...The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree...
...And we are witnesses of all things, whih he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree; Acts 2:14, 23, 36; 3:14-15; 4:11; 5:30; 10:39

Stephen: Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: Acts 7:51-52

Paul: For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. I Thessalonians 2:14-16

Of course, it's wrong to accuse the Jews of today of killing Christ, but the role of the Jews of Jesus' day in crucifying Him is a matter of historical record. If some people have a problem with that, then that's their problem. There's nothing in the Bible for which Christians have to apologize.

Declaration of Christian faith can hurt one's job prospects in Norway

Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; John 15:20ab

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. II Timothy 3:12

As reported by Sputnik News, November 13, 2019 (links in original):

The Christian faith is often seen as a handicap for job seekers, who sometimes go so far as to ask for articles mentioning their religious affiliation to be deleted. As one researcher put it, being an active Christian is almost as bad for you career as having a Pakistani-sounding name.

Christians are discriminated against almost as much as Muslims if they are open about their faith when applying for a job, a new Norwegian study has shown.

“It surprises us that Christian backgrounds turn out this negative in job applications”, Edvard Nergård Larsen, a research fellow at the Department of Sociology and Social Geography at the University of Oslo told the news outlet Vårt Land.

Together with colleagues, he has sent over 18,000 fictitious job applications to companies in Norway, the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, and Spain. Nearly 3,000 of them were addressed to Norwegian employers.

In the CV, all “applicants” stated that they had worked for an unnamed youth organisation. While “Kristian” and “Silje” purportedly belonged to a Christian organisation, “Tariq” and “Yasmeen” were part of a Muslim one.

While the main finding in the Norwegian part of the survey is that applicants with typically Norwegian names are preferred over applicants with foreign names, religion also turned out to be an important factor. If open about their religion, the perfectly Norwegian-sounding Kristian and Silje were found to have a mere 20-percent change of being called for an interview, which is fully comparable with the 10-percent chance that the Muslim couple reportedly had.

“It is almost as bad to be active in a Christian organisation as to have a Pakistani-sounding name”, Larsen concluded.

Furthermore, of the five countries the surveys have been conducted in, Norway is the only one where Christians were found to be discriminated against.

“It is possible that Norwegian employers consider it inappropriate to mention religious activity in a job context more generally”, Larsen suggested.
Another possible explanation could be the employer's active prejudice against this group, he mused.

“Being active in a Christian organisation can give employers associations with conservative attitudes more generally”, he suggested.
Strangely enough, for ethnic minorities, it is the other way around, as Christian involvement has been found to have a positive effect for them.

“Being active in a Christian organisation dampens the discrimination they otherwise face”, Larsen pointed out.

Karl Jahr, the editor-in-chief of the Christian newspaper Korsets seier, admitted that he often receives inquiries from people to delete articles that mention their Christian faith, which is often seen as a handicap when looking for a job.

Norway is a predominantly Christian country, with about 70 percent of the population belonging to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Norway. The Catholic Church is the next largest Christian denomination at about 3 percent of the population.

Canadian Army brigade commander bans church parades

They still have the same titles and look somewhat the same, but the Canadian armed forces in the 21st century aren't fighting for the same things their predecessors in the 19th and 20th centuries were fighting for. In typical Orwellian SJW fashion, the brigade commander mentioned in the article below defines "inclusivity" to mean excluding anything Christian. It's ironic that a columnist who's a professing atheist sticks up for military church parades; as reported by Christie Blatchford in the National Post, October 16, 2019 (link in original):

An army brigade commander has told the 14 Ontario reserve regiments under his charge that they must cancel any “church parade” they have planned.

Despite a lack of complaints about the parades, which see soldiers march to their regimental church, Col. Daniel Stepaniuk urged his commanding officers to stop participating in “any event where the primary purpose is liturgical, spiritual or religious … even if the service is non-denominational.”

A custom in the Canadian Army since the time of Confederation, the parades aren’t as common as they once were, though many units still have at least one a year, often tied to Remembrance Day ceremonies.

Reserve regiments are made up of part-time soldiers, also called citizen-soldiers, and one of their greatest benefits is keeping alive and visible the community-army bond. In the small cities and towns where most of the units are based, the units are often an integral part of community life.

While the parades are sometimes considered a pain in the butt by troops (remembering that soldiers love to complain), reservists nonetheless appreciate the fact that they are paid for their time.

Stepaniuk told his COs in an Oct. 4 memo that, “As we embrace diversity and strive for inclusivity, we really need to examine those practices which may be exclusionary to our soldiers.”

Or, as he told the National Post in a recent phone interview, “I think it’s important not only that we create a diverse environment, but also that diversity is a hallmark of the Canadian Forces. … We can’t be privileging one group over another.”

(It’s the first time to my memory I have ever heard privilege used as a verb.)

He defended his order by saying, “It’s our policy,” which is true so far as it goes.

In 2014, the rules for army chaplains were amended to read, in section 33.11, that “Officers and non-commissioned members shall not be ordered to attend a parade that is primarily religious or spiritual in nature.”

But the rule has been on the books for almost five years, it appears to be the first time that a commander is making an issue of it.

The last time Stepaniuk struck in similar fashion was in August of 2017, shortly after he took command of 32 Brigade, when he determined that if his units weren’t nominating sufficient numbers of women to serve as “honoraries,” he would leave the appointments vacant, rather than (the horror! the shame!) see them filled with men.

Honoraries in the militia — colonels and lieutenant colonels — are traditionally recruited locally, and while in recent years there were soft targets for seeing more women represented, Stepaniuk was the first to lay down the law so arbitrarily.

As he wrote his commanding officers at the time, if their units were being advised by a regimental or association committee and they “choose a suitable nominee and they are not using an appropriate diversity lens, it is your responsibility to ignore their recommendations and proceed to find a suitable candidate.

“If this is not absolutely clear, if we don’t proceed in the direction of gender diversity, I’m prepared to have no honoraries because as current appointments expire, folks won’t be replaced.”

Now, however, it appears he has surpassed himself in the category of stupid and unnecessary orders.

First of all, there is the glaring contradiction with Stepaniuk’s harsh stand on church parades and a parade that happened in Toronto last April.

A group of soldiers — I counted between 15 and 20 — were issued weapons, allowed to march in their military uniforms and were escorted by an armoured vehicle in the annual Khalsa parade for Canada’s Sikh community. It is considered a holy day.

The soldiers were from the Lorne Scots, one of Stepaniuk’s reserve units based in Brampton. The CO of the unit said at the time that he signed off on the weapons only after his commander (that would presumably be Stepaniuk, or perhaps the brigadier-general above him) approved the soldiers’ participation.

So weapons worn at a Khalsa Day parade good, though against the rules (The Canadian Armed Forces Manual of Drill and Ceremonial), according to army spokeswoman Karla Gimby.

But soldiers going anywhere near a church, bad, and against rules five years old that no one cared to enforce until now.

But most of all, in such small incremental strikes, does Canadian history and tradition lose strength.

I am an atheist. I have been to a church parade in a small eastern Ontario town. It was lovely. It was entirely benign. It did no harm and probably some good.

Stepaniuk appears to believe there is malevolence there. He also appears to believe that the core business of the Canadian Army is diversity, not training soldiers for war. What a disservice he does to those he leads.

See also my post Canadian Forces Base Edmonton: Standing on guard for Sodom (June 13, 2013)

Former politician Michele Bachmann apologizes to Jews for saying they need to be evangelized

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. John 14:6

Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Acts 17:29-30

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. I Corinthians 1:23-24

I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Galatians 2:21

Here we go again, with yet another Christian grovelling before Jews, asking their forgiveness for the heinous crime of saying that they need to come to God through the blood of His son Jesus Christ. As reported by Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 14, 2018:

Michele Bachmann apologized in Israel for statements she previously made calling on Jews to convert to Christianity in order to help bring the End of Days.

Bachmann, a former congresswoman from Minnesota who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, said in 2015 that Christians need “to be faithful in the Kingdom and to help bring in as many as we can, even among the Jews — share Jesus Christ with everyone that we possibly can because, again, He’s coming soon.”

Bachmann made the comments during a radio interview in Israel while on a tour organized by the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group.

Bachmann apologized for that statement Sunday at a joint Jewish-Christian Bible study at the Knesset, held in honor of Jerusalem Day. She asked for “repentance from the Jewish people for the horrible and arrogant way Christians — myself included — treated and regarded the Jewish people.”

“I ask for forgiveness from the Jewish people for what it is that we have done,” said Bachmann. “I apologize profoundly and ask forgiveness from the Almighty God that these statements brought pain.”

The event was co-sponsored by the Knesset Caucus for the Encouragement of Bible Study, the Schindler Society and Israel365’s Yeshiva for the Nations, which aims to teach Torah to non-Jews. This was the third such Bible study and the first one to take place on Jerusalem Day.

As reported by Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 8, 2015 (links in original):

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann called for an intensified effort to convert Jews to Christianity.

Bachmann, a former congresswoman from Minnesota who ran for the Republican nod in 2012, was in Israel last week on a tour organized by the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group.

Toward the end of the week, she spoke on the council president’s radio program, “Washington Watch,” and discussed the meaning of the recent intensification of violence in Israel and the West Bank. She cast the violence as a signal of the return of Jesus, which would necessitate mass conversions.

“We recognize the shortness of the hour,” Bachmann said on the program hosted by Tony Perkins, “and that’s why we as a remnant want to be faithful in these days and do what it is that the Holy Spirit is speaking to each one of us, to be faithful in the Kingdom and to help bring in as many as we can — even among the Jews — share Jesus Christ with everyone that we possibly can because, again, He’s coming soon.”

The first to report Bachmann’s call was Right Wing Watch, a project of People for the American Way, a church-state separation advocacy group.

If Ms. Bachmann was of the view that Christians have to "convert" Jews en masse prior to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, she was mistaken. Conversion is God's work, not ours. If however, she meant that the gospel should be proclaimed to Jews, she was correct, and shouldn't have apologized. Ms. Bachmann's name has been linked with the dominionist New Apostolic Reformation at times, so I'm not sure exactly what she did mean. The gospel is "to the Jew first," and they need to come to God in the same way Gentiles do--through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross; it's not "arrogant" to proclaim that. As the above passage from Galatians says, if it's possible to come to God through keeping the law, then Christ died in vain.

I'm one Christian who's tired of Christians constantly apologizing to politically-correct groups, especially when they're apologizing for the alleged sins of other people. I'm always hearing that Jewish resistance to the gospel is the result of centuries of Christian anti-Semitism. That seemed a good explanation until it occurred to me (long after it should have, I must admit) that such a rationalization fails to explain Jewish opposition to Jesus Christ during His ministry, or Jewish persecution of Jewish believers in Christ and Jewish attempts to prevent Gentiles from coming to Christ in the 1st century, when there was no Gentile church around to persecute Jews. As the passage in I Corinthians 1 cited above says, He's a stumblingblock to the Jews.

A Bible study put on by the organizations mentioned in the article above is highly unlikely to acknowledge Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Torah (the five books of Moses) and the rest of the Old Testament, and Christians might want to reconsider their participation in such Bible studies. As the Lord Jesus Christ said:

Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust.
For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me.
But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? John 5:45-47

50 years ago: Canada goes under permanent foreign occupation

Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; Psalms 33:12a

Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people. Proverbs 14:34

I should have posted this a week ago, as April 20, 2018 marked 50 years since Pierre Elliott Trudeau succeeded Lester Pearson as Prime Minister of Canada, two weeks after winning the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. At the time he became Prime Minister, Mr. Trudeau, an ostensible Roman Catholic who was known for his secular humanist associations, was Justice Minister, supporting legislation to legalize abortion and homosexual acts. Just over a year later, both abominations had been legalized, signalling, as Pastor Perry F. Rockwood observed, that secular humanism and not the Bible was now to be the basis of Canadian law.

The country which is still officially known as Canada, but would be more accurately termed, as Mark Steyn put it, "Trudeaupia," is unrecognizable to anyone old enough (and this blogger is just barely old enough) to remember what it was like before Mr. Trudeau imposed his will from 1968-1984 (minus nine months from 1979-1980, when Prime Minister Joe Clark led a minority Progressive Conservative government). Trudeaupia, not a nation in any Biblical sense, has become increasingly godless over the past 50 years. The current regime, under Pierre's mentally and morally retarded pothead son Justin--who more closely resembles a bumbling character in a situation comedy than a Prime Minister--is the most evil and anti-Christian in the country's history, with examples too numerous to mention here.

The one thing I'll say on behalf of Justin Trudeau is that he's managed to do what I believed impossible: he has me thinking positive thoughts about Pierre Trudeau. While Pierre Trudeau's government legalized abortion, he didn't interfere in local ridings to overturn nominations of pro-life Liberal candidates, or refuse to grant charitable status to organizations that disagreed with his position, as Justin Trudeau has done. While Pierre Trudeau's government legalized homosexual acts, he didn't think it necessary to issue an apology by the government to those who had been dismissed as security risks in earlier days because of homosexual behaviour, as Justin Trudeau has done (echoed by "Conservative" Party "leader" Andrew Scheer). Justin not only tolerates no dissent within the Liberal Party--which as far back as February 1976 was referred to by former PC Prime Minister John Diefenbaker as "no longer the Liberal Party; it's the Trudeau Party"--but he seems intent on banning all dissenting views within the entire country.

For a crash course on when and where Canada went wrong, I recommend the first two chapters of Lubor Zink's book Trudeaucracy (1972), which may be hard to find, but is worth the effort. Readers with access to university libraries should examine Mr. Zink's columns in the Toronto Telegram from the first four months of 1968; they'll tell you everything you need to know. Mr. Zink's later columns in the Toronto Sun and his book Viva Chairman Pierre (1977) are also must reading. Here's an excerpt from Mr. Zink's column in the Telegram, April 5, 1968, the day before Pierre Trudeau captured the Liberal leadership:

Talking to delegates I find that most of those who support Trudeau cannot explain what attracts them to the man. Their commitment, bordering often on hero-worship, is largely emotional. Those who oppose him, recall that only five years ago Mr. Trudeau derided the Liberal Party as a bunch of idiots, campaigned for the New Democrats, and "preached socialism."

And from April 8, 1968:

When it was all over, I listened for comment amid the roar of Trudeau worshippers.
A delegate from Quebec said: "Good-bye Canada."
A Soviet delegate said: "Excellent choice. Trudeau will make Canada progressive."
A Cabinet minister muttered: "The Seven Days boys are in charge now."
A woman, taking off her delegate’s badge, said: This isn’t my party any more. God help us all."

Indeed, God help us all.

20 years ago: Good riddance to Anton LaVey

On October 29, 1997, Anton Szandor LaVey, who founded the Church of Satan in 1966 and published The Satanic Bible in 1969, died at the age of 67. Mr. LaVey, born Howard Stanton Levey, was mainly a con man and a showman, and often seemed to do things in order to generate publicity; many aspects of his biography that he claimed for himself have apparently been proven untrue. Anton LaVey was already largely forgotten by the time of his death, and with the further passage of time, I suspect he will increasingly be regarded as a footnote character in the culture of the 1960s.

The book Selling Satan: The Tragic History of Mike Warnke (1993) by Mike Hertenstein and Jon Trott contains an appendix titled Reality is a Sometime Thing: A Strange Evening with Anton LaVey. As part of the research for their book, Messrs. Hertenstein and Trott were dinner guests circa 1991-1992 at the home of Mr. LaVey and his longtime companion Blanche Barton, and provided the following commentary on Mr. LaVey:

If our quest had been to discover the "real" Anton LaVey, here at last he was: a human being on the edge of eternity, grasping after immortality and significance. he seemed very much alone and quite deluded...

...the interplay between Anton LaVey's barricaded Kingdom of Evil and the rest of the world was full of contradictions. The Satanic Bible, which purported to be a celebration of will, was actually a celebration of LaVey's will, full of "oughts" and "shoulds" that any real nonconformist would have thrown out the window. The Black Pope, hater of humanity--who has praised such isolated "joys" as masturbation--worries about being forgotten, his own icon smashed by time. One had to wonder if perhaps LaVey's entire masquerade was just one long whistle past the graveyard, an attempt to tame evil and take the sting out of death by reducing them to mere objects of "kitsch." But the last laugh was coming.

Jon shook the iron gate--Blanche had insisted we make sure it was locked behind us. We waved to her on the porch and she pulled the front door shut, securing the black house from the violent world of homicidal nuts that LaVey, with his bubble gum nihilism, had helped to create. As we headed down California Street toward our car, my partner and I felt a great sadness for Anton LaVey. It was clear that his chain-link fence against the darkness wasn't going to hold out for much longer.

Suicidal virtue-signalling liberal Jews shelter Syrian Muslim invaders refugees

"Virtue signalling" is the term used to describe people who are intent to show off their "virtue"--especially to those who don't like them, and may even want to destroy them--because it makes them feel good about themselves. The behaviour can be found among those who may be described as liberal, and especially among those who may be described by the recently-popular term "cuckservative." A cuckservative is someone who claims to conservative, but considers it more important to be seen as not racist and/or not sexist by people who don't like him anyway, than to stand for any conservative principles. Submitted for your approval, the following example of liberal virtue signalling, as reported by Yaniv Pohoryles of Ynet News, February 10, 2017:

A London synagogue will devote part of its structure to the construction of living quarters for Syrian refugees, according to a BBC Arabic report.

The report, which has been circulated on Arabic social media pages, is part of a continuing initiative by synagogue members to provide aid to refugees from Syria. Currently—following fundraising efforts—synagogue members have begun construction on the section of the synagogue that will house the refugees.

According to the report, one family has already moved into the synagogue and community members are providing aid to other refugees by raising funds and financing temporary residences in London.

Operations at the synagogue are expected to continue as usual, including prayers.

The South London Liberal Synagogue had already launched a crowdfunding campaign, which tried to raise £50,000 for the cause.

Chair of the Synagogue Council, Alice Alphandary, told the Guardian that, "For me, this is a very personal subject. My father was a refugee in the 50s and now this is an opportunity to help the refugees of today."

The project itself is called "Araham's Tent," named after the story according to which Abraham's tent had four openings as an invitation to all. Alphandary added that "in Judaism, hosting is nearly a religious duty."

And this example, as reported by Andrew Friedman of Tazpit Press Service, April 13, 2017:

On the eve of the holiday of Passover, as Jews worldwide come together to remember the story of the exodus of the ancient Hebrews out of slavery, an Israeli rabbi and ethics scholar says the holiday demands attention to aspects beyond just remembrance of the Exodus, particularly this year with the plight of refugees around the world and the human crisis in Syria.

Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, chairman of the Ethics Committee for the Tzohar rabbinical organization and one of Israel’s leading experts on issues of ethics and Jewish law, has called upon Jews in Israel and around the world to use the Passover Seder as an occasion to inspire greater global awareness of the ongoing plight of a people just north of Israel’s border.

“When we read of the biblical commandment to remember the exodus from Egypt, the commandment requires that we personally feel as if we were personally liberated,” Cherlow said. “Seder night is a commemoration of our existence as a nation as we recognize how we left Egypt and came to the land of Israel. This recognition requires us to appreciate many lessons, one of which is that we too must empathize with the plight of other refugees.

“The horrific events of recent days and weeks, as we have witnessed atrocities against innocents, must call all people of conscience to respond. The Seder provides us that opportunity. At its core, the Seder is a night of faith in God as the ultimate force, who dictates the path of history and the fate of our people. That also has an impact on our perspective of other nations.”

Cherlow added that although virtually all competing sides in Syria’s civil war are also hostile towards Israel, the Jewish holiday of freedom demands compassion for the innocent victims of the fighting.

“On Seder night, we identify not with those who are committing evil but rather feel solidarity with those innocents literally caught in the crossfire,” Cherlow said.

The full text of the prayer (translated from the Hebrew by Elli Sacks) is as follows:

Master of the universe, who makes peace on high.

Though we are not accustomed to creating new formal prayers, we can no longer stand aside to look at the slaughter taking place in Your world and fail to pray. We know that both sides in this war are guilty of wanton bloodshed, and we are unable to keep silent when so many who are beyond the circle of conflict have fallen victim.

Oh Lord, we beseech You in prayer to arouse in the killers their basic humanity and evoke mercy in their hearts. Lead them to recognize that we are all created in Your image and that there are limits even to human cruelty. May You bring to pass what is written in Your Torah: “He who sheds the blood of man, by man his blood shall be shed, for in God’s image was man created.”

Grant us the wisdom to know how to act in this hour of distress, when the dark face of humanity’s evil inclination is once again fully exposed and we are unsure how to stand against it. Enable us to act with all our energies to prevent bloodshed in Your world, above all in the Holy Land and its environs, as it is written in Your Torah: “You shall not pollute the land where you are for blood pollutes the land; and the land will not expiate the bloodshed upon it, but with the blood of he that shed it.”

May God who makes peace on high, make peace upon us and upon all Israel, and let us say amen.

Columnist Dennis Prager is a Jewish American who fails to see the wisdom of Jews offering sanctuary to their enemies. As he states in his column of March 7, 2017:

Last week, the Jerusalem Post and other news agencies reported that in a Paris suburb, two Jewish brothers wearing kippot (Jewish skullcaps) were attacked while driving their car by Middle Easterners driving another car.

According to a case report: "While the vehicle was in motion, the driver and a passenger shouted anti-Semitic slogans at the brothers that included 'Dirty Jews, You're going to die!' ... The vehicle forced the brothers to stop their car, and they were surrounded by several men ... The men came out of a hookah cafe on to the side street ... The alleged attackers surrounded the brothers, then kicked and punched them repeatedly while threatening that they would be murdered if they moved. One of the alleged attackers then sawed off the finger of one of the brothers."

Attacks on Jews in France and elsewhere in Europe by Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, or MENA, are so common that for the first time since World War II, Jews in France fear wearing a kippah or a Star of David in public. So many French Jews are leaving France that two years ago, then-Prime Minister Manuel Valls gave an impassioned speech pleading with French Jews to stay in France.

It has gotten so bad for Jews in Europe that The Atlantic, a liberal magazine, recently featured an article titled "Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?"

In Sweden, attacks on Jews in Malmo, the country's third largest city, are so common that Jews are leaving the city and the country.

Last year, the Jerusalem Post published an article about a Jewish couple that had lived in Sweden since the middle of World War II. Dan and Karla (not their real names) are Danish Jews who were smuggled into Sweden as children. Their gratitude for Sweden has been immense.

But they have now left their homeland, the country that saved their lives, to live in Spain. They lived in Malmo. In Dan's words, the immense saturation of Jew hatred in the city was caused by "the adverse effects of accepting half-a-million immigrants from the Middle East, who plainly weren't interesting in adopting Sweden's values and Swedish culture. ... The politicians, the media, the intellectuals ... they all played their parts in pandering to this dangerous ideology and, sadly, it's changing the fabric of Swedish society irreversibly."

The Post continued, saying, "Karla, who'd sat passively, occasionally nodding in agreement at Dan's analysis, then interrupted, saying, 'If you disagree with the establishment, you're immediately called a racist or fascist.'" (Sound familiar?)

The British newspaper The Telegraph recently reported: "Jewish people in Malmo have long complained of growing harassment in the city, where 43 per cent of the population have a non-Swedish background, with Iraqis, Lebanese and stateless Palestinians some of the largest groups. The Jewish community centre in the city is heavily fortified, with security doors and bollards on the outside pavement to prevent car bombs."

An article in the left-wing HuffingtonPost reached a now-familiar conclusion, saying: "Migrants streaming into Europe from the Middle East are bringing with them virulent anti-Semitism which is erupting from Scandinavia to France to Germany. ... While all of the incoming refugees and migrants, fleeing Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim lands, may not hold anti-Jewish views, an extremely large number do — simply as a result to being raised in places where anti-Jewish vitriol is poured out in TV, newspapers, schools and mosques. ... 'There is no future for Jews in Europe' said the chief Rabbi of Brussels."

Yet, despite all this Muslim-immigrant Jew hatred, more than a thousand rabbis have signed a petition to bring large numbers of MENA Muslims into America, and virtually all Jewish organizations outside of orthodoxy and the Zionist Organization of America have condemned President Trump's administration for enacting even a temporary travel ban (one due entirely to security concerns) on immigrants and refugees from seven (of the world's more than 50) Muslim-majority countries.

How is one to explain the widespread American Jewish support for bringing in a massive number of people, many of whom will bring in anti-Jew, anti-Israel and anti-West values?

First, they are staggeringly naive believing, for example, that marching at airports with signs that read "We love Muslims" will change those Muslims who hate Jews into Muslims who love Jews.

Second, never underestimate the power of feeling good about yourself that exists on the left (the self-esteem movement originated on the left). And it feels very good for these Jews to say: "Look, world. You abandoned us in the 1930s, but we're better than you."

And third, when American Jews abandoned traditional liberal and traditional Jewish values for leftist values, they became less Jewish, less American and more foolish.

Just ask the Jews of Europe.

In addition to the reasons provided by Mr. Prager for the suicidal behaviour of his fellow Jews, I can think of another: Jewish anti-Christianism. Jews in Western countries have traditionally been regarded as outsiders and have often been persecuted, leading them to resent the majority culture, and to sympathize with those they regarded as oppressed minorities. Until fairly recently, the dominant religion of Western nations was some form of professing Christianity (and to Jews, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and various forms of Protestantism are often seen as equally representing "Christianity"). Jewish organizations in Western nations resented the majority "Christian" culture, and wanted to weaken the Christian influence in their nations. Accordingly, they were prominent in supporting policies providing for increased immigration of non-Christian, non-Western populations into Western countries--not because such immigration would be good for these countries, but it would be good for the Jews.

The Christian influence in Western nations has waned to the point of virtual extinction--in no small part due to the increasing apostasy of professing Christian churches--but Jewish organizations have continued to pursue their anti-Christian agenda, apparently oblivious to the fact that the latest wave of invaders migrants is composed of large numbers of Muslims who really don't like Jews, and are intent on turning their new places of residences into Muslim countries. As a result, it's hard for me to sympathize with Jews in Europe and elsewhere who complain about persecution and anti-Semitism when they've brought it on themselves to a large extent by supporting Muslim immigration. The increase in anti-Semitism in these countries, if not directly proportional, has certainly increased along with the increase in the number of Muslims allowed into these countries.

Mr. Prager, who describes himself as an ethical monotheist, has said in the past that he's one Jew who greatly fears a post-Christian America. Other American Jews in the media who express support for the rights of Christians include Michael Medved and his rabbi, Daniel Lapin. Nat Hentoff, despite being a professing atheist, has occasionally used his column to bring attention to the persecution of Christians. In Canada, my friend Ezra Levant, through his media site The Rebel, has done tremendous work in supporting the legal rights of Christians in Canada, for which I'm grateful. Rebel reporter Faith Goldy continues to expose what the Muslim invaders refugees are actually doing in Canadian schools--which the mainstream media refuse to report, because it doesn't fit their agenda.

Unfortunately, the people I've just mentioned see to be in the minority, while Jewish organizations continue to support policies that aren't good for Jews, Christians, or anybody else who loves freedom. Let us pray they see the error of their ways.