Display of politically-incorrect New Testament passage leads Belgian politician to call for a ban on religious programming on publicly-funded television networks

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Ephesians 5:22-33

As reported by James Crisp of the London Daily Telegraph, September 4, 2018:

Brussels - An onscreen Bible reading which demanded women be submissive to their husbands has sparked calls to end religious broadcasting on public television in Belgium.

The New Testament reading, from Ephesians 5.22 - 33, was broadcast on radio and Flemish TV station VRT from a Catholic mass in the town of Grimbergen.

A lay reader said, “Women, be submissive to your husband as the husband to the Lord. For the man is the head of the woman as Christ is the head of the church.”

Sven Gatz, the media minister for the Dutch-speaking Belgian region of Flanders who represents the Flemish liberal party, tweeted: “No outdated, woman-unfriendly statements … please. What if, for example, an imam would have said this?”

He told newspaper Het Nieuwsblad: “The fact that they come from an old book is not an argument for letting them go to our people. This is not of this time, and that it is broadcast on the VRT for the whole of Flanders is already completely crazy.”

Mr Gatz has been unsuccessfully calling for the end of Songs of Praise-style programmes at the taxpayer’s expense since last year, but he now hopes the controversy will reignite the debate and insists different solutions could be found for religious people who are unable to attend mass.

“I want to examine all the technical possibilities to give these people their weekly celebration. But this cannot be an argument to keep these broadcasts, at the expense of the taxpayer," he said.

VRT said it had “no problem” with its broadcasts leading to debate and discussion, while the Dutch Bible Society, which has Flemish members, said that the reading had been taken out of context.

“The contested statement is preceded by a very different sentence: ‘Accept each other’s authority out of respect for Christ’. This indicates that this is a very different matter than legitimisation of the oppression of women by men,” a spokesman for the society said.

Roman Catholic priest in Venice calls for "decency tax" on brides with plunging necklines

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes.
Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.
For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. I Peter 3:3-5a (NIV)

And now for something completely different, for those who are tired of hearing scandals involving Roman Catholic clergy and homosexuality. As reported by Nick Squires of the London Daily Telegraph, September 5, 2018:

Brides showing too much decolletage should be made to pay more for their wedding ceremonies, an Italian priest has proposed.

Cristiano Bobbo says he has noticed wedding dress necklines plunging lower and lower over recent years. Father Bobbo says brides who display too much flesh at the altar should be subjected to a sort of decency tax.

"We could establish a sort of offering to be levied in proportion to the decency of the dress of the bride, who often present themselves looking coarse and vulgar, so the least dressed pay the most," said the priest, from Oriago, near Venice.

Writing to parishioners, he said an increasing number of brides turned up in gowns that were “inappropriate for the circumstances” of a church wedding.

Weddings had turned into glamorous social events, rather than solemn spiritual occasions, he said. Brides should enter into holy matrimony wearing outfits that are simple and in “good taste”, he added.

Father Bobbo said his suggestion was a "jocular provocation" but something that he would like to implement given half the chance.

The proposal prompted a debate on social media, with many Italians accusing the priest of being prudish and out of touch.

“It feels like we’re going back to the 1940s when there were loads of taboos in place,” one man wrote on Twitter. “Does a low neckline really still cause a stir?”

Another wrote: “So should we fine the Church on the basis of how many victims were sexually abused by members of the clergy?”

But others were more supportive. “Finally, a bit of common sense. If people want to turn up in church semi-naked, why are they getting married in church?” wrote "Nicoletta", commenting on the story on an Italian news website.

Survey finds that people in Britain aren't coming to faith as they get older

As reported by Olivia Rudgard of the London Daily Telegraph, September 7, 2018 (links in original):

Fears have been raised for the Church of England's future as researchers warn people will no longer become religious in old age.

Figures released by the National Centre for Social Research show that the number of over-55s who say they are in the Church of England has fallen from almost half to just over one in four in 15 years.

The sharpest drop was among 45 to 54 year-olds, from 35 per cent in 2002 to 11 per cent in 2017. Among young people, aged 18-24, the proportion fell to just two per cent.

More than half of the population now say they have no religion, an increase from 41 per cent in 2002.

The researchers said the figures suggested that young people were no longer finding faith as they got older.

Roger Harding, head of public attitudes at the National Centre for Social Research, said: "We've got every reason to suspect that by and large the young people with no religion today in their twenties and thirties will become, in time, people in their fifties and sixties with no religion.

"It suggests that particularly for the Church of England and Church of Scotland, their decreasing numbers aren't going to be corrected with people getting older. It's likely that as people get older they'll continue to have no religion."

The Church of England insisted that young people were still open to faith, and said its "work goes on whatever the figures may say".

Dave Male, the Church of England's director of evangelism and discipleship, said: "The headline figure here only gives us part of the picture.

"It has been clear for some time that we have moved from an era of people automatically, and perhaps unthinkingly classifying themselves as Church of England or Anglican to one in which identifying with a faith is an active choice.

"We also know from research that people, particularly younger people, are less aware of denominations.

“Yet research, especially amongst young people, shows an increase in willingness to engage in faith.

“Our experience is that people – of all ages - haven’t stopped searching for meaning and answers in their life."

Stephen Evans, chief executive of the National Secular Society, said: "These figures are part of a long-term pattern. The Church of England’s teachings and attitudes have been diverging from the interests and values of ordinary people in Britain for many decades now."

40 years ago: The death of Russian Orthodox Church leader and KGB agent Metropolitan Nikodim

On September 5, 1978, Metropolitan Nikodim, born Boris Georgiyevich Rotov, died of a heart attack at the age of 48. He was ordained as a Russian Orthodox bishop at the age of 31 and was named Metropolitan of Leningrad and Novgorod in 1963, eventually becoming one of six presidents of the World Council of Churches. Metropolitan Nikodim, like his predecessor Metropolitan Nikolai, was actually an agent of the Soviet secret police force KGB, and served the Soviet cause through his ecumenical activities with the Roman Catholic Church and the WCC.

Metropolitan Nikodim died under memorable circumstances: two days after the installation of Pope John Paul I, Metropolitan Nikodim met the new pontiff, and suddenly collapsed with a fatal heart attack; Pope John Paul prayed over him in his final moments. Metropolitan Nikodim at least had the satisfaction of dying with the knowledge that he had been a good and faithful servant of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union. He was succeeded in his office by Metropolitan Anthony, presumably also a KGB agent.

This blogger won't mention that the fact that leading Iron Curtain churchmen were known to be agents of their Communist governments didn't stop Billy Graham from appearing with them on platforms and giving them legitimacy they didn't deserve.

School cheerleaders in east Texas win the right to display Bible verses

At last, some good news, as reported by Lauren McGaughy of the Dallas Morning News, August 31, 2018 (links in original):

Austin -- Christian cheerleaders in a small city in east Texas can continue to display Bible verses at football games, the state's highest court has decided, bringing them closer to the end of a yearslong battle with their school district.

Since the lawsuit was filed six years ago, multiple courts have sided with the cheerleaders at Kountze Independent School District, ruling they have a First Amendment right to display religious messages at school events. On Friday, the Texas Supreme Court rejected a request by district officials to rethink those rulings, handing the cheerleaders yet another victory that could mark the end of this legal saga.

The case became a proxy battle in the war over where one person's religious rights end, and secular society begins. The cheerleaders have received widespread support from Christian groups and Texas' top Republicans, as well as legal support from the First Liberty Institute, a Plano-based nonprofit and breeding ground for conservative legal thinkers.

"As the football season kicks off across Texas, it's good to be reminded that these cheerleaders have a right to have religious speech on their run-through banners – banners on which the cheerleaders painted messages they chose, with paint they paid for, on paper they purchased," Hiram Sasser, First Liberty's general counsel and an attorney for the cheerleaders, said Friday. "School districts everywhere should learn an important lesson from this failed litigation.

"Stop harassing cheerleaders and accept that they are free to have religious speech on their run-through banners."

The lawsuit dates to 2012, when school officials told the cheerleaders they could not display Bible verses on their banners at school sporting events. The cheerleaders sued and the district ended up changing the policy, but school officials reserved the right to restrict what the banners said because they counted as government speech.

A judge sided with the cheerleaders in 2013. But the appeals court soon after said their lawsuit was moot because of the school district's policy change. Eventually, the case went to the Texas Supreme Court and was remanded back to the appeals court, which sided with the cheerleaders in September 2017.

The school district again appealed to the Supreme Court last year, which decided Friday not to take up the case.

Tom Brandt, the Kountze school district's attorney, said he was disappointed with the decision but held out hope his clients may have a chance to appeal.

"We're not happy with this result, but I'm not willing to say that there's no possibility we can change this," Brandt told The Dallas Morning News. "I don't think the case is completely over."

Brandt pointed to a 2011 case in which a federal appeals court ruled a cheerleader in Silsbee, Texas, couldn't refuse to root for a basketball player she said raped her because she "served as a mouthpiece through which (the school district) could disseminate speech." The Silsbee cheerleader appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear her case.

The disconnect between that federal case and this state case, Brandt said, could keep their lawsuit alive: "Those two cases are still in tension. They haven't been resolved."

The cheerleaders' attorney, however, said the Supreme Court's decision was the final word on the matter.

"After more than five years of litigation, our clients are relieved that the Texas Supreme Court has brought an end to the school district's scorched-earth litigation tactics," Sasser said.

The case will now be sent back to a lower court judge, who will determine attorneys' fees.

North Carolina pastor and principal charged with numerous sex offenses with a minor

Yet another one--as reported by Mark Price of the Charlotte Observer, August 30, 2018 (links in original):

A North Carolina man who is pastor of a small-town Baptist church and principal of its private academy is facing more than a dozen sex-related charges involving a minor, says the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office.

Kevin “Scott” Heffner, 48, is being held in the Rockingham County Jail under a $1 million bond, said a sheriff’s office press release.

He is charged with 12 counts of disseminating obscene materials and two counts of statutory sex offense, the release said. He was arrested at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to the release.

Investigators said Heffner allegedly sent “photographs of his genitalia” to someone age 15 or younger between June 15 and August 29, reported TV station WGHP.

“This investigation is ongoing. Information about the minor involved is not being released,” said a statement issued by the sheriff’s office.”

Heffner, who lives in Pelham, is pastor of Victory Baptist Church in Ruffin and principal of the church’s Victory Baptist Academy, sheriff’s office officials said.

The latter is a private Christian school of about 20 students, that is listed as being at the same address as the church on Oregon Hill Road, according to GreatSchools.org. It covers grades 3-12, says Private School Review.

Ruffin is an unincorporated community of about 400 people, according to SuburbanStats.org. It is about 32 miles northeast of Greensboro, near the Virginia state line.

A Sept. 9 court date was set for Heffner, the sheriff’s office said.

Scholarly re-examination of radiocarbon dating leads to re-evaluation of King David and the Exodus

The Tel Dan Stele referencing King David

It comes as no surprise to this blogger to read that radiocarbon dating may not be as scientifically precise as is commonly promoted. As reported by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz of Breaking Israel News, July 2, 2018 (links in original):

A recent study into carbon dating may reset the archaeological timeline, adding fuel to an ongoing debate as to whether King David ruled over a large unified kingdom or whether he was a tribal chieftain, overly glorified in the Biblical narrative.

Prof. Sturt Manning of Cornell University recently published a paper, Fluctuating Radiocarbon Offsets Observed in the Southern Levant and Implications for Archaeological Chronology Debates in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) Journal. His study of radiocarbon testing in the southern Levant suggests that the current model for carbon dating is inaccurate when applied to Israel. His data point to more recent ages for archaeological findings, suggesting a timeline that may be earlier by as little as a few years or as many as several decades.

“If the difference in the carbon dating sets a new date 20 years earlier then it is not significant,” Professor Avraham Faust, an archaeologist some of whose findings at Tel Eton were carbon dated, told Breaking Israel News. “If it is set 60 years earlier then it might be significant.”

The difference in those years for the archaeological timeline is literally of Biblical proportions.

“The debate between the high chronology (the earlier timeline) and low chronology (the later timeline) draws the public interest because it might have consequences as to whether David was a tribal chief or a larger polity,” Faust stated.

Manning’s study could reset carbon dating as it is applied in the Middle-East. Carbon dating is calibrated by the IntCal13 curve based on securely dated findings taken from trees, usually oaks or conifers, from the northern hemisphere. Manning’s study investigates whether the unusually long and hot summer in the Middle East would lead to different results for carbon dating. Using juniper trees in southern Jordan, he utilized calendar-dated tree ring studies from the years 1610-1940. He correlated these findings with the Carbon-14 in the rings’ annual growth. The study found a difference of about 20 years during the 330-year test period when compared to the IntCal13 curve. When applied to artifacts from the early Iron Age in Israel, he estimated that this could mean a difference of 50-100 years in the dating.

Faust noted that Manning’s findings seemed to indicate the low chronology.

“When there were differences, they always indicated that the date should be newer in the Middle-East,” Faust said. “If this difference is also applied to earlier periods than what Manning tested, findings from the 10th century BCE for example, this might support the low chronology, depending on how much later the new dates would be.”

But Faust cautioned that at this point, the study is not conclusive regarding its application to findings from the Biblical period.

“There are many ‘ifs’ before we can assess the importance of this study this to our findings from the Iron Age in Israel,” he said. “If there is indeed a difference in the carbon dating between Europe and the Middle East, and if that difference gives a lower date in antiquity, and if that difference is significant, then it has an impact on the debate over Biblical David.”

Faust explained that the Biblical chronology places the united monarchy of David and Solomon in the 10th century BCE. Archaeological finds like his at Tel Eton, close to the Hebron Hills, seems to fit with the story, showing cities and public buildings with a relatively sophisticated social infrastructure, which might be associated with David’s kingdom in the highlands during that period.

“This can be in line with at least some of the Biblical description of a kingdom centered in the highlands,” Faust said. “If, however, you go according to the low chronology placing these cities and public buildings at a later date, then there are many fewer finds that can correlate with a central kingdom in the highlands at the time in which King David was supposed to have existed. This would mean that David could not have been as important a king.”

A thorough scientist, Faust cautioned that even if the reset of the carbon dating is shown to be applicable, consideration will still be required.

“When you discuss a historical question, you should rely on as much as evidence as possible,” Faust cautioned. “Carbon 14 dating is just one of them and is not necessarily definitive or final, as the study shows. In archaeology we have a huge amount of evidence, and all the surrounding evidence needs to be considered as well. It needs to fit into a coherent picture, not simply be taken on a site-by-site basis.”

It is important to note that the discussion among scientists is not whether King David existed but how he ruled. Faust confirmed this.

“It is my experience that the vast majority of scholars believe that a figure by the name of David existed, mainly because 9th century BCE sources mention a dynasty named after him,” Faust said. “Most scholarly views fall within a spectrum, with one side of it seeing David as a local, insignificant chief, and the other conforming to an image more consistent with the Biblical description of a ruler of a kingdom centered in the highlands and ruling even beyond it. Most scholars are located somewhere along this spectrum. Very few, if any, serious scholars would say that David was a completely mythical figure, and that no person by that name ever existed and that this figure was not regarded as a founder of a dynasty of rulers already at an early stage.”

And as reported by Mr. Berkowitz in Breaking Israel News, August 27, 2018 (links in original):

A recent breakthrough in carbon dating may help archaeologists give a more precise dating for the Exodus from Egypt, linking it to a catastrophic volcanic eruption that many claim explains some of the more spectacular aspects of the Biblical story.

A University of Arizona study led by Dr. Charlotte Pearson was published two weeks ago. The study used high-resolution radiocarbon dating methods to establish a more precise date for a cataclysmic volcanic blast that took place in the 16th century BCE in Thera, an island in the Aegean Sea near Greece. Their results will be used to re-calibrate carbon dating around the world.

“What we are trying to do is be part of the global realization that the radiocarbon calibration method is ready for an improvement. Because now the technology is there to measure the radiocarbon in every single tree ring, and we’re just pulling out one treasure from the box — in this instance the carbon-14, and seeing how that can be applied to improve the way we date material in the Mediterranean… and anywhere in the world,” said Pearson, in a video explaining her project.

Despite its massive scale as one of the largest volcanic eruptions in the last 4,000 years, archaeologists and historians have always had difficulty assigning a specific date to the Thera eruption. The devastating results of the eruption are evident on the island to this day, as are the results of an earthquake and tsunami generated by the volcano.

The eruption is a key marker for the Bronze Age chronology of the Eastern Mediterranean world. It provides a fixed point for aligning the entire chronology of the second millennium BCE in the Aegean, as evidence of the eruption is found throughout the region. Despite the evidence, the exact date of the eruption has been difficult to determine. Archaeologists have traditionally placed it at approximately 1500 BCE.

Radiocarbon dates corresponding to the eruption, including analysis of an olive branch buried beneath a lava flow from the volcano that gave a date between 1627 BCE and 1600 BCE, suggest an eruption date more than a century earlier than suggested by archaeologists. Thus, the radiocarbon dates and the archaeological dates are in substantial disagreement.

The Thera eruption was so transformative that major historical events in the region have been attributed to it. The discoverer of the Akrotiri archaeological site, suggested that the Minoan eruption is the basis of Plato’s story of Atlantis.

Some egyptologists believe ancient Egyptians wrote about the Thera eruption. Times of Israel wrote that Nadine Moeller, associate Professor of Egyptian Archaeology at the University of Chicago, believes the Thera eruption was referred to an the Tempest Stela. Attributed to Pharaoh Ahmose I who ruled from 1539–1514 BC, it describes a great storm striking Egypt during this time, destroying tombs, temples and pyramids and the work of restoration ordered by the king. The storm was accompanied by darkness, earthquakes and flooding.

“It is now time to consider the possibility that the Tempest Stela is indeed a contemporary record of the cataclysmic Thera event,” Moeller wrote in a 2014 article.

In 1981, Professor Hans Goedicke, chairman of the department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a world-famous Egyptologist, attributed several aspects of the Biblical account to the eruption at Thera. His theories were based on his opinion that the Exodus took place 1477 BCE in the reign of the Pharaoh Hatshepsut, 200 years earlier than most historians previously believed. Goedicke believed the splitting of the Red Sea and the swallowing up of the Egyptian army was the result of a tsunami generated by the eruption at Thera. Initially well-received, Professor Goedicke was ridiculed for his theory and his claims labelled a hoax.

This theory was resurrected by two-time Emmy winner Simcha Jacobovici and world-famous film director James Cameron in a 2006 documentary titled “The Exodus Decoded.” In additon to espousing Goedicke’s theory attributing the splitting of the sea to a Thera generated tsunami, the film also suggests that Thera may have been the source of the Biblical pillars of fire and smoke.

This connection between the eruption at Thera and the Biblical Exodus was also suggested in books by geologist Barbara J. Sivertsen.

When asked by Times of Israel if her results were significant for the dating of the biblical Exodus story, Pearson answered ambiguously.

“All I can say is that continued work to improve chronological frameworks is essential for the study of past civilizations,” she wrote in an email.

In her study, she writes, “No definitive calibrated radiocarbon range for the Thera eruption is currently possible, but the altered position of the 14C plateau indicates that improved calibration has much to offer chronological synchronization of human and environmental timelines in this period.”

Of course, if you can come up with a "scientific" explanation for the Exodus, then you can omit God from the event, and explain the Biblical account as merely a Jewish mythological explanation for a natural event. The Bible, however, allows for no such explanation of the Exodus, stating that it was clearly a miraculous intervention by God into both human history and nature:

And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:
And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night.
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.
And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.
And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians,
And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.
And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.
And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them.
But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.
Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore.
And Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, and his servant Moses. Exodus 14:19-31

150 years ago: Future Mormon President delivers false prophecy

But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken?
When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him. Deuteronomy 18:20-22

Today--September 2, 2018--marks 120 years since the death of Wilford Woodruff at the age of 91. Mr. Woodruff joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1833 and worked his way up the ladder, as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from 1839-1889, serving as President of the Quorum from 1880-1889, and then as President of the church from 1889 until his death. He practiced plural marriage, with at least 9 wives and 34 children by them, but officially banned the practice in 1890 when it became apparent that Utah would never be granted statehood within the U.S.A. unless plural marriage was outlawed.

Mr. Woodruff believed that the second coming of Jesus (the Mormon Jesus, that is, not the biblical Jesus) and the end of the world were imminent. He was 12 years away from becoming the Mormon Church's "Prophet, Seer and Revelator" when, on August 22, 1868, he preached a sermon in which he prophesied that New York City would be "destroyed by an earthquake;" Boston would be "swept into the sea, by the sea heaving itself beyond its bounds;" and Albany, New York, would be "destroyed by fire." Speaking afterwards, Brigham Young--the current "Prophet, Seer and Revelator"--stated that "what Brother Woodruff has said is revelation and will be fulfilled."

I don't know how Mr. Woodruff defined "imminent," but 150 years have gone by since he delivered his apocalyptic sermon, and the prophesied events still have yet to come to pass. This blogger finds it very hard to believe that even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would regard T + 150 years and counting as being within reasonable bounds of "imminent."

When it comes to the Mormon President's title, is there anyone who can remember the last time any "Prophet, Seer and Revelator" actually prophesied, saw, and revelated? As Dave Hunt and Ed Decker stated in their book The God Makers (1984), the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a "non-Prophet religion."

Presbyterian church in New Hampshire hires Brazilian female "pastor" in an effort to reverse its decline

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.
And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. I Corinthians 14:34-35

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression...
...This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife,... I Timothy 2:12, 3:1-2a

Despite the optimistic tone of the following article, I doubt that this woman occupying an unbiblical position will be able to delay the church's collapse more than temporarily, except by turning it into something other than an actual Christian church. As reported by Ryan lessard of the New Hampshire Union Leader, August 8, 2018:

LONDONDERRY — When Karla Dias, 63, started her job as the new pastor of Londonderry Presbyterian Church (LPC) in November 2016, some church members left because she was a woman or because Dias, a native of Brazil, spoke with an accent.

But since then, they've added new members, and Dias has been spearheading a community grief counseling initiative.

Founded in 1735 by Rev. James McGregor, LPC is one of the oldest congregations in the country. And for the past 280 years it has never had a full-time female pastor.

Longtime church member Lucille Robbins said that, at its height in the mid-1990s, the church had about 800 members and three services.

But the church’s ranks had aged and dwindled in recent years, and it suffered a mass exodus of members about 10 years ago when it experienced a schism — an ideological split that led to a spinoff Evangelical Presbyterian church. LPC remained a part of the traditional Presbyterian Church U.S.A. denomination.

Robbins said the schism and the acrimony surrounding that event is long behind them, and they now have a positive relationship with their sister church, Orchard Christian Fellowship, which is located down the road. But Robbins said their church suffered a branding issue; people saw them as “the church that fights.”

When Dias came on board, there were about 30 members.

“They hired me to be the revitalization pastor,” Dias said.

While a few members responded to her arrival by quitting the church, she said the larger church body welcomed her.

“Here I am, a Latina, ... and this little church, 100 percent white, accepted me ... with open arms,” Dias said.

When asked about negative response to efforts to increase diversity in the state, she said it’s really sad. “We grow more beautiful when we acquire colors from everywhere,” Dias said.

Membership in LPC is a little over 40, and Dias said more members are staying after the service for coffee and fellowship. And Dias said she has been learning a lot about New England culture, and her English has improved.

And they have a strategy for future growth. To start with, Robbins said they plan to knock on the doors of 55-plus communities to hand out fliers and talk about the church.

“I am praying for youth too,” Dias said.

There are a handful of preteens in the church who are about to become teenagers. She hopes to be able to start a youth group that might attract a younger demographic.

The worship music at LPC is a mix of traditional and contemporary, with an “small orchestra” of musicians who can play the cello, flute, french horn, violin, trumpet, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano and drums.

“I’m not an ordinary pastor,” Dias said. “If I have to dance, I dance. If I have to laugh, I laugh.”

Karla said the music and inclusivity of the church is what made her fall in love with it early on. She says it’s “Christ-centered,” which she defines as a church that treats all kinds of people with love.

Eventually, the goal is to have enough members to send missionaries abroad, something the church hasn’t done for a while.

So far, most of her ministry has been for older generations, with a lot of focus given to grieving widows and widowers, who find themselves alone often after decades of living with another half. And Dias is no stranger to starting making changes later in life.

She was a longtime missionary to indigenous Xavante tribes in the forests of Brazil, but she didn’t get her masters of divinity from Andover Newton Theological School until 2015. She also served as a hospital chaplain for many years.

Today, her support group for widows and widowers, called “Walking Together,” has about 13 to 14 regular members. They meet every first and third Tuesday of the month at the church at 126 Pillsbury Road at 7 p.m. Another group for those grieving lost loved ones who are not spouses, called “Walk With Me,” meets every second and fourth Tuesday at 7 p.m.

One does not need to be a church member to join the support groups.

Australian Roman Catholic leaders refuse to violate confidentiality of confession to report child abuse

As reported by Agence France-Presse, August 31, 2018 (links inserted by London Daily Telegraph):

Australian Catholic leaders vowed on Friday that the church's "shameful" history of child abuse and cover-ups will never be repeated, but rejected a national inquiry's call to report such assaults disclosed in confession.

The church was formally responding to a five-year royal commission into institutional child abuse, ordered by the government after a decade of pressure to investigate widespread allegations across the country.

"Many bishops failed to listen, failed to believe, and failed to act," said Catholic Bishops Conference president Archbishop Mark Coleridge.

"Those failures allowed some abusers to offend again and again, with tragic and sometimes fatal consequences. The bishops and leaders of religious orders pledge today: Never again."

The commission was contacted by more than 15,000 survivors who detailed harrowing claims of abuse involving churches, orphanages, sporting clubs, youth groups and schools, often dating back decades.

Among the inquiry's recommendations was that priests break the traditional confidentiality of confession if they are told of abuse, but the church said such a requirement impinged on religions liberties and was "non-negotiable".

"This isn't because we regard ourselves as being above the law or because we don't think the safety of children is supremely important - we do," said Coleridge.

"But we don't accept... safeguarding and the seal (of confession) as mutually exclusive. Nor do we believe that abolishing the seal will make children any safer."

In its response the church argued that a perpetrator or victim might be less likely to raise abuse in confession if confidence in the sacramental seal was undermined.

"So an opportunity would be lost to encourage a perpetrator to self-report to civil authorities or victims to seek safety," it said.

The inquiry also called for celibacy among priests to be voluntary, and Australian Catholics agreed to seek expert theological and canonical advice in consultation with the Holy See on the issue.

The royal commission, which heard horrific stories during often emotionally exhausting public and private hearings, delivered its final report in December.

It found that Australian institutions "seriously failed" children in their care with tens of thousands sexually assaulted.

During the hearings, it was told that seven percent of Catholic priests in Australia were accused of abuse between 1950 and 2010, but the allegations were never investigated, with children ignored and even punished when they came forward.

Coleridge acknowledged the church's "colossal failures" in Australia, like elsewhere in the world, had left it damaged.

"We know that only actions, not words, can rebuild trust. And until trust is rebuilt, all the apologies in the world will miss the mark," he said.

"There will be no cover-ups, there will be no transferring of people accused of abuse, there will be no placing of the reputation of the church above the safety of children.

"We will respond swiftly to accusations against church personnel. We will improve our governance structures, we will be more transparent, and we will listen."

Sister Monica Cavanagh, president of Catholic Religious Australia, said the church accepted 98 percent of the recommendations, calling the inquiry "an important and necessary period for the Australian community".

"The process is already under way to reform the church's practices to ensure that safeguarding is integral in all that we do as part of our ministry and outreach in the community," she said.

"Making the church a safer place for our children and vulnerable persons is at the heart of our commitment to mission."

I can't resist mentioning that it was 425 years ago today--August 31, 1593--that Pierre Barrière was executed by breaking on the wheel and dismemberment, four days after attempting to assassinate King Henri IV of France (justice was swift and sure in those days). Mr. Barrière was denounced by a Dominican priest to whom he had confessed the crime; obviously the priest didn't consider the confessional sacred and confidential in that case.

LDS President wants to discard the word "Mormon"

As reported by Peggy Fletcher Stack and Scott D. Pierce of the Salt Lake Tribune, August 16, 2018 (updated August 23, 2018) (bold, links in original):

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints really, truly, absolutely wants to be known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Not the LDS Church. Not the Mormon church.

It made that clear Thursday — even though the last attempt to eradicate those nicknames for the Utah-based faith flopped.

The new push came from God to President Russell M. Nelson, the church said in a news release Thursday.

“The Lord has impressed upon my mind the importance of the name he has revealed for his church,” Nelson is quoted as saying, “even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

The faith’s headquarters in Salt Lake City and Latter-day Saints across the globe have much “work before us to bring ourselves in harmony with his will,” the 93-year-old Nelson said in the statement. “In recent weeks, various church leaders and departments have initiated the necessary steps to do so.”

Thursday’s statement — released on mormonnewsroom.org — referred readers to the “updated Newsroom style guide,” which calls on news organizations to follow these instructions:

• Use the full name — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — on first reference.

• Refer to “the Church,” the “Church of Jesus Christ” or the “restored Church of Jesus Christ” in shortened or subsequent references.

• Avoid using the abbreviation “LDS” or the nickname “Mormon” as substitutes for the church’s name, as in “Mormon Church,” “LDS Church” or “Church of the Latter-day Saints.”

• Refer to members as “members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” or “Latter-day Saints,” not “Mormons.”

The new guidelines also state that “‘Mormonism’ is inaccurate and should not be used,” and that the term “‘the restored gospel of Jesus Christ’ is accurate and preferred.”

The style edict says “Mormon” is correctly used in proper names such as the Book of Mormon, the faith’s signature scripture, or when used as an adjective in historical expressions such as “Mormon Trail.”

Still, many believing observers are skeptical that this drive will be any more successful than a similar effort to jettison “Mormon” that launched before the 2002 Winter Olympics. That attempt ended a decade later with a return to the long-standing and, in some quarters, beloved nickname “Mormon.”

Rocky Anderson, who was Salt Lake City’s mayor from 2000 to 2008, diligently followed the dominant church’s request back then — even using “the Church of Jesus Christ” on second reference, which sometimes earned jeers even from faithful Latter-day Saints.

“It was really awkward,” Anderson said Thursday. “I did find it a mouthful.”

What’s in a name?

For authorities such as Nelson, the faith’s name is more than branding.

After its founding in 1830, the church was known variously as The Church of Christ, The Church of Jesus Christ and even The Church of the Latter-day Saints. In 1838, it became The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when church founder Joseph Smith received what was recorded as a revelation from God:

“For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Smith declared in Doctrine and Covenants 115:4.

Blogger Steve Evans, founder of By Common Consent, sees Nelson’s effort as “fighting for the divinely revealed name of the church in the hearts and minds of the members.”

In a 1990 speech (a year after former church President Ezra Taft Benson sang “I Am a Mormon Boy” from the pulpit), Nelson, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, spoke of the importance of using the church’s full name.

“He views it as something sacred, which I respect,” Evans said. “But the initiative won’t succeed — if success means getting everyone to stop using the terms ‘Mormon’ or ‘LDS Church.’”

Evans predicts this undertaking will only “confuse outsiders,” he said. “I don’t think it substantively alters external perspectives of the church, but I do think it makes us look a little persnickety.”

The church already has “a popular brand — why not embrace it and use it? … We should be leveraging those names instead, while simultaneously teaching the real name of the church and reinforcing why it is something holy to us.”

LDS blogger Jana Riess, a senior columnist for Religion News Service, also believes the drive may fail.

“It would be extremely unlikely for the majority of journalists to adopt this new style,” she said, “in part because the church has not provided a single-word term that is as descriptive as ‘Mormon’ or ‘LDS.’”

When people plug “the Church of Jesus Christ” into a Google search, Riess said, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “is not going to come up.”

And Latter-day Saints themselves likely will continue to use the only monikers they’ve used their whole lives, she said, but now “might feel guilty about it.”

In academia, “Mormonism” is by far the preferred term, said Patrick Mason, head of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University in Southern California.

In addition to Claremont, there are three other professorships in “Mormon studies” — at the University of Utah, Utah State University and the University of Virginia.

“I cannot imagine a university approving a professorship in ‘Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint Studies’ or ‘Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ Studies,’” Mason wrote in an email. “‘Mormonism’ and ‘Mormon’ will continue to be dominant in the academy.”

Mason has a personal stake in this. He has just published a book called “What Is Mormonism?” Still, the LDS scholar concedes that Mormonism “has always been a fraught and imprecise term.”

Beyond the main body

Does “Mormon” apply equally to members of the mainstream LDS Church, the Community of Christ, the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and all other religious descendants of Joseph Smith and the early Latter-day Saint movement, Mason asked, “or just to the LDS Church?”

Some people are upset when “Mormonism” is used synonymously with the LDS Church and its members — as if they are the only “Mormons” and all the other groups don’t exist, he said, while members of the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) say “they don’t want to be called ‘Mormons,’ because they associate the term with the Utah-based LDS Church.”

Such confusion may have been part of the reason for this move, said historian Matthew Bowman, author of “The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith.”

“This strikes me as a move toward boundary maintenance, in both the manner of its presentation and the fact of it,” Bowman wrote in an email. “Nelson’s language asserts his revelatory authority and implicitly contrasts that authority with the common vernacular of the world. He frames language use here as a matter of discipline and loyalty. The nomenclature he offers stresses the uniqueness of the church.”

Bowman said that, in the end, “this effort seems to me an attempt to emphasize the distinctiveness of the church.”

A global faith

Wilfried Decoo, a Latter-day Saint writer and professor in Belgium, understands his faith’s desire to be seen as “Christian” by urging everyone to use its full name.

By rejecting “Mormon” as short for the church, Decoo wrote in a 2011 essay, “we give up the key element of our international brand name, recognizable in all languages.”

In another language, for example, “Latter-day Saints” is translated as: “I am a Holy Being of the Almost Final Period.”

“This policy kind of shows how parochial-American someone at the top thinks without any clue of international semantics,” he said Thursday from his home in Europe. “I don’t think it will have any effect outside of the church, and even inside … It’s just impossible to enforce.”

Gordon B. Hinckley, who became church president in 1995, understood the dilemma.

“‘The Mormon church,’ of course, is a nickname. And nicknames have a way of becoming fixed,” he preached in the October 1990 General Conference. “I suppose that regardless of our efforts, we may never convert the world to general use of the full and correct name of the church. Because of the shortness of the word ‘Mormon’ and the ease with which it is spoken and written, they will continue to call us the Mormons, the Mormon church, and so forth.”

Hinckley recalled a member in England telling him: “While I’m thankful for the privilege of being a follower of Jesus Christ and a member of the church which bears his name, I am not ashamed of the nickname ‘Mormon.’”

When someone asked him about it, the man replied, “‘Mormon’ means ‘more good.’”

Hinckley knew that wasn’t the actual meaning, but adopted the man’s thinking about the tag.

“We may not be able to change the nickname,” the affable leader concluded, “but we can make it shine with added luster.”

After all, Hinckley said, Mormon is the “name of a man who was a great [Book of Mormon] prophet who struggled to save his nation, and also the name of a book which is a mighty testament of eternal truth, a veritable witness of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

This blogger finds the Latter-day Saints' desire to drop the word "Mormon" to be rather suspicious, as I remember seeing television commercials for the church in the 1980s where they referred to themselves as the Mormons. I suspect that the move is not only to continue the LDS practice of deceiving people into believing that they're actually Christians, but may also be because the word "Mormon" may have negative connotations, which begs the question as to why "Mormon" may have negative connotations. Could it be because when people hear the word "Mormon" they think of the word "cult?"

This reminds me of when Amway in North America tried using the name Quixtar in the early 2000s. Could that have been because the name Amway brought to mind thoughts of deceptive marketing practices? If I recall correctly, the television commercials for Quixtar mentioned it as being formerly Amway, which tended to negate whatever the purpose of the name change may have been.

I doubt that the Latter-day Saints will be successful in getting the word "Mormon" dropped from common use; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is just too long a name to be used comfortably in conversation or writing, and "Mormon" has been around too long to be discarded. I'm not the only one who's doubtful that Russell Nelson's desire will be realized (and I hardly need say, but will do so anyway, that the "God" who spoke to Dr. Nelson is a false god--a "god" who was once a man and is an extraterrestrial from a planet near a star called Kolob). According to Ms. Stack in the Salt Lake Tribune, August 27, 2018 (links in original):

So if “Mormon,” “Mormonism” and “LDS” are out, what’s in?

Go ahead. You find an appropriate one-word stand-in for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its people and its principles.

It must be clear and universally acceptable. It must tie the Utah-based faith to Christianity and its own history without confusing it with other denominations.

Oh, and it must be short, recognizable and straightforward. You know, like “Mormon.”

Moments after church President Russell M. Nelson announced last week that God told him to reinforce the faith’s full name and eschew its long-standing nicknames, speculation sprang up about alternatives.

We posed the question on social media and got hundreds of responses — some creative, some snarky, some silly, but none satisfying.

The Church Formerly Known as Mormon? May have worked for rock artist Prince, who died in 2016, but it violates church leaders’ request by including the very word they are trying to downplay.

Because “Latter-day Saint” is approved, how about Latter-day Saintism? Nah, too easily confused with more devilish devotions.

Ex-Mo or anti-Mo? Don’t go there.

Latter-day Sainthood (Laddies or Latties, for short)? Too haughty and presumptuous, perhaps.

Ziontology? Clever, yes, but ask Scientologists how that would fly.

TCOJCOLDS (pronounced Taco J. Colds)? An anagram lover’s dream but a marketer’s nightmare.

You see, if there were an obvious solution, it probably would have been trotted out already — and caught on.

A name or emphasis change is hardly an unreasonable request, but it’s especially tough for institutions to implement (think the New Coke).

Back in the 1990s, some folks quietly questioned the decision by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to switch to the Community of Christ, a vague-sounding nomenclature that meant reporters routinely would add (formerly RLDS) to explain the religion’s roots.

The problem for the Salt Lake City-headquartered faith is that “Mormon” is the most commonly used one-word moniker both inside and out of the 16 million-member church. It is familiar, easy and distinctive — and has been part of the lexicon for nearly 200 years.

Latter-day Saint authorities propose using “the Church” or “the Church of Jesus Christ” for shortened references, but the latter has a long association with other Christian faiths and the former is vague and could mean any church anywhere.

Besides, “The Church” traditionally refers to the Roman Catholic Church, which, with its 1.2 billion members, is by far the world’s largest Christian faith.

Lots of groups would lay claim to the “Church of Jesus Christ,” including Disciples of Christ, United Church of Christ and the numerous Churches of God in Christ (which often take a parenthesis to know they are Pentecostals).

A Latter-day Saint offshoot even has the website address thechurchofjesuschrist.org.

All this breeds confusion, not the clarity Nelson craves.

Some wonder if reporters or academics could say, on second references, The Church of Jesus Christ (Mormon), tying the two together — as earlier Latter-day Saint media ads did.

Would it be OK to dub the group Jesus Mormons? Nope, there’s that pesky term again.

How about Latter-day Saint Christians? That’s feasible. After all, church officials said “Latter-day Saints” is an acceptable substitute for members.

In fact, before the church’s full, formal name was spelled out in 1838 by founder Joseph Smith, many members called it the “Church of the Latter-day Saints.” But church brass specifically rejected that name for the institution in the style guide that accompanied Nelson’s pronouncement.

Through the decades, the term “Mormon” — the name of an ancient prophet in the faith’s foundational scripture, the Book of Mormon — became dominant and “Latter-day Saints” faded from public recognition.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the church pushed the public and members to drop “Mormon” in favor of “Latter-day Saints” or “LDS Church” as an attempt to counter the perception that members and their church were not part of the Christian family. It even adopted a new logo that emphasizes Jesus Christ by casting his name in larger letters.

The effort mostly failed. By 2010, the church reversed itself and wholeheartedly re-embraced “Mormon.” It spent millions promoting the “I’m a Mormon” ad blitz and two feature documentaries titled “Meet the Mormons.”

So is “Latter-day Saints” — or just “Saints” — a good replacement for all that? Meet the Saints. I’m a Saint.

Some members feel squeamish about calling themselves “Saints,” fearing that it sounds self-laudatory and self-serving.

Indeed, “Saint” generally is associated with an especially holy Catholic or Orthodox Christian — not to mention a prominent pro football team.

As to the word “Mormonism,” it covers many traditions and beliefs that track their origin to Joseph Smith, including the Community of Christ, ahem, RLDS.

Some have suggested members be called “Brighamites,” a throwback tag given to the main body of Latter-day Saints who followed Brigham Young along the Mormon Trail (the church gives a pass to the trail reference since it’s historic) to the Great Basin.

Clearly, coming up with a worthy replacement for “Mormon” is a tall order. Even the church-owned Deseret News needs time to devise one for its weekly Mormon Times content.

“We are currently evaluating potential names for this section,” Editor Doug Wilks writes, “and will make a change in coming weeks.” (The newspaper has dropped Mormon Times from its website.)

“Mormonism” has been a handy term, says Latter-day Saint scholar Richard Bushman, an emeritus history professor at Columbia University, to describe a bigger religious reality than a single faith group.

“We are a church. We are a gospel. We are a priesthood and an organization,” he says in the latest Salt Lake Tribune “Mormon Land” podcast. “But something larger has been created from that. ... We are a people, almost an ethnicity, and a culture that emanates from the people.”

Nelson’s injunction is no trivial exercise, Bushman says. It is forcing Latter-day Saints to “rethink who we are and what these words amount to.”

Stuart Reid, a former public affairs official who helped with the church’s earlier effort to drop “Mormon,” sees Nelson’s motivation as more expansive than a simple rebranding.

It is the result of “revelation,” Reid says in the same “Mormon Land” episode. The prophet is preparing the faithful “for the Second Coming of Christ.”

Language does evolve so there’s no telling how outsiders or insiders will describe The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints come 2050.

The word “Mormonism” could be little more than a vague echo of bygone days — or, if Reid is onto something, maybe the end of the world will already have happened.

Survey finds that nearly half of U.S. Jews don't identify with organized religion

It comes as a surprise to this blogger that the figure isn't higher, but perhaps it's more evidence that people are as likely to lie on religious surveys as they are on sex surveys. As reported by Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 29, 2018:

NEW YORK — Nearly half of U.S. Jews do not identify with organized religion, a new study by the Pew Research Center finds.

More than one in five, however, are considered “Sunday stalwarts” (or Saturday): those who “actively practice their faith, but they also are deeply involved in their religious congregations.”

The study published Wednesday defines how people practice their religion. It only includes Jews who define their religion as Judaism, or “Jews by religion.”

Conducted last December, the study of more than 4,700 respondents has a margin of error of 2.3 percent.

Among the seven categories, 45 percent of American Jews are listed in the two for the least religious: “religion resisters,” who believe in a higher power but have negative views of organized religion, or “solidly secular,” those who don’t believe in God and do not self-define as religious. The breakdown is 28 percent as “solidly secular” and 17 percent as “religion resisters.”

On the other end of the spectrum, 21 percent of Jews are “Sunday stalwarts.” Eight percent are “god-and-country believers,” who express their religion through political and social conservatism, and 5 percent are “diversely devout,” who follow the Bible but also believe in things like animism and reincarnation.

The somewhat religious are defined as either “relaxed religious” (14 percent), those who believe in God and pray but don’t engage in many traditional practices, or “spiritually awake” (8 percent), those who hold New Age beliefs and believe in heaven and hell.

Americans as a whole are more or less evenly divided among the seven groups. The largest three groups are “Sunday stalwarts,” “relaxed religious” and “solidly secular” at 17 percent each. The smallest are “god-and-country believers” and “religion resisters” at 12 percent each.

“Jewish Americans are the only religious group with substantial contingents at each end of the typology,” the study says.

Former papal nuncio to the United States calls for Pope Francis's resignation

As reported by Andrea Tornielli of La Stampa, August 26, 2018 (updated August 27, 2018):

The authorities of the Holy See had been aware since 2000 of the existence of accusations against Archbishop Theodore McCarrik, who was promoted at the end of that year Archbishop of Washington and created cardinal by John Paul II the following year: it was known that the prelate invited his seminarians to sleep with him in the beach house. This is what can be read in an 11-page document signed by Carlo Maria Viganò, former secretary of the Governorate and former apostolic nuncio to the United States, who was removed from the Vatican and sent to the diplomatic seat in Washington in 2011.

Viganò’s text is full of dates and circumstances, and is clearly addressed to Pope Francis, whose resignation the former nuncio is asking because, according to him, he would have lifted the existing sanctions against McCarrick after the 2013 conclave. The document gives details of rumors and information which have been already circulating in the past two months in the anti-papal and traditional American and European media galaxy, trying to attribute all responsibility on the shoulders of the current Pontiff.

Viganò affirms that the accusations of 2000, with written testimonies against McCarrick – who had been accused of harassing seminarians and young adult priests - were regularly transmitted by the apostolic nuncios who followed one another in the See of Washington, first Monsignor Gabriel Montalvo and then Monsignor Pietro Sambi. These reports, however, remained unanswered.

Viganò blames the Secretary of State Angelo Sodano - but also the Substitute Leonardo Sandri, now Cardinal Prefect for the Eastern Churches – for having covered up McCarrick. And on John Paul II, who in 2000 approved the nomination to Washington, and the following year the inclusion of the controversial archbishop in the College of Cardinals, Viganò wrote: “Was it Sodano to appoint McCarrick to Washington and to Cardinal, as John Paul II was already very ill? We are not given to know. However, I do not think he was solely responsible for this. McCarrick frequently went to Rome and made friends everywhere, at all levels of the Curia.

A second round of allegations against McCarrick is dated 2006. Viganò himself writes that he had prepared two detailed notes against the cardinal, forwarding them to his superiors - at that moment the Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone (accused of sponsoring too many homosexuals to positions of responsibility in the Curia and in the Church). The outcome of these notes also took a long time to arrive, although Viganò states that in 2009 or 2010 Benedict XVI decided to impose sanctions on the now resigned McCarrick, imposing him not to live in a seminary, not to appear or celebrate in public, not to travel. McCarrick, however, did not take these sanctions, which remained secret, seriously. It is enough to browse the web for a few minutes to realize that even after Pope Ratzinger’s alleged sanctions, the American Cardinal continued to celebrate in public and give lectures.

Finally, the last chapter: in June 2013 Viganò, during a private audience of June 2013, when asked by Francis about McCarrick, replied to the Pope that there was a dossier full of accusations against the cardinal at the Congregation for the Bishops. Viganò does not claim to have transmitted, that day, or subsequently, documents or accusations against McCarrick to the new Pope. But those few words exchanged were sufficient for him to affirm that Francis would not have behaved correctly, but would in some way have helped the elderly cardinal, who would also have become - the former nuncio affirms, in this case without going into detail or reporting any precise facts – a close counselor to the new Pope for American episcopal nominations. It should not be forgotten that McCarrick was no longer in office since 2006, but was a cardinal archbishop emeritus, without posts.

Beyond the details of a text that evidently fits into the personal ecclesial battles of a prelate who has never digested his departure from the Vatican by decision of Benedict XVI, and the instrumental use that is made of it in the battle waged by the anti-Francis fringe and its penetrations into the Church, international politics and the media, there remain some facts to be clarified.

The first concerns the appointment of McCarrick to Washington and above all his subsequent inclusion in the College of Cardinals. In 2000 Pope John Paul II was certainly not at the end of his days (he died five years later), and to make him pass as tired, sick and unable to make decisions seems rather improper. It must be assumed that Cardinal Sodano concealed decisive information from the Pontiff. News that came from the apostolic nuncio to Washington, who also had direct access to the Pope. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re - who according to Viganò, as a new Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops wrote down his opposition to McCarrick’s nomination - was a person close to the Pope and close to the powerful secretary of Pope Wojtyla, Monsignor Stanislaw Dziwisz. Why did no one tell the Pontiff of the accusations against the candidate for archbishopric of Washington and why no one blocked his subsequent nomination as cardinal?

The second fact concerns the period 2006-2013. Viganò assures us that there are secret sanctions against McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI and attacks McCarrick’s successor in Washington, Donald Wuerl, for pretending he did not know. These sanctions obliged the cardinal harasser of seminarians and and young adult priests to retire from the public to a life of prayer and penance, without appearing or celebrating in public. Why did McCarrick not obey these sanctions and continue to do what he did before as a retired cardinal, celebrating masses and giving lectures? Why did no one ask for respect for the papal orders and why did no one warn the Pope of this grave disobedience? And again, why did Pope Ratzinger choose to keep these sanctions secret – if we assume that every statement made by Viganò is true - without ever making them public?

The third fact. When this year there was news of a concrete denunciation of abuse of a minor by McCarrick - a fact dating back to when he was a priest in New York - Pope Francis forced him to live withdrawn and took away his cardinal status. The very first real and radical sanction against the former archbishop, which has no precedent in the more recent history of the Church. Until 2018, the date of the formal opening of the canonical investigation against McCarrick, the allegations concerned homosexual relations with adults. Then the question remains as to why Monsignor Viganò has not published this information until today if he was so convinced that it was something of the utmost importance for the Church. And why as apostolic nuncio to the United States he did not put them down in writing, inviting the new Pope to take action against McCarrick, to ensure that Benedict’s secret sanctions were finally applied, something that had evidently not happened before.

Nigerian university suspends six students over alleged involvement in cultism

The cult isn't identified, but the suspended students are; as reported by Ajibola Olaniyi in the Lagos Daily Post, August 22, 2018:

The management of Obafemi Awolowo University(OAU) Ile Ife, on Wednesday, announced the suspension of six students of the institution, for alleged involvement in cultism.

According to a release by the Registrar of the university, Mrs Magaret Omosule, which was obtained by DAILY POST, the students were said to have confirmed their membership of a secret cult in the course of police investigation.

The statement reads, “It will be recalled that on Monday, 2nd of July, 2018, an information was received by the University Management that two students of the institution, against their will, were forcefully initiated into cultism outside the University campus.

“Promptly, the security Unit of the University swung into action and, after a thorough preliminary investigation, twelve students of the University were apprehended and handed over to the Osun State Command of the Nigeria Police to assist with further professional investigation.

“After the investigation, therefore, the University, on 20th August, 2018, received a detailed report of the Police findings, where it was confirmed that six students of the University had admitted their membership of proscribed groups, thus breaching their Matriculation Oath, Code of Conduct and other pertinent University regulations.

“Accordingly, and in accordance with the relevant statutes, the following students have been suspended pending the outcome of investigations by the appropriate Students’ Disciplinary Committee. They are :

(1) ONYEKWUSI Praise Chinemerem, Matriculation number ASE / 2014/218

(2). OJO Abiodun Olamide, Matriculation number MCB /2012 /149

(3).UDE John, Matriculation number ASE /2015 /362

(4). OLADOYE Tobi Olakunmi, Matriculation number EGL /2014/ 383

(5) AYEYI Damilola Ayomide, Matriculation number EGL /2016 /075

(6) DAVIS Jesulayomi Olakunle, Matriculation number EGL / 2014 /207.

“Management hereby uses this medium to assure the University Community and all other stakeholders, most especially the students populace that adequate measures have been put in place to secure lives and property and ensure a peaceful environment for all residents on the University estate.

“As it is the collective responsibility of all stakeholders to protect the University from persons with criminal intentions, members of the University Community are advised to be vigilant at all times and report any suspicious activities which could undermine the peaceful coexistence of members of the University Community”.

Charismaniac Nigerian "prophetess" arrested for child-trafficking

As reported by Victor Azubuike of the Lagos Daily Post, August 24, 2018:

A 34-year-old woman identified as Helen Christopher has been arrested by the Rivers State Police Command for alleged child-trafficking.

Spokesman of the Command, Nnamdi Omoni said the woman was arrested with four missing children in a Church, Mountain of Deliverance Fire Ministries, in Ete-O, Eleme Local government area.

Omoni claimed that the woman, Helen, operates with a group whose operation was smashed by men of the State Criminal Investigation Department.

“Men of the State CID smashed a child-trafficking syndicate run by one Madam Helen Christopher who runs a hilly home in Eleme. She’s 34 year from Akwa-Ibom.

“Our personnel acted on intelligence and trailed the suspect following series of complaints we have received about missing children in parts of Port Harcourt.

“She was arrested with one 20 year old, Joy Olaka-Nworgu who confessed to committing the crime. Four children were rescued from her church,” Omoni said.

However, the Prophetess, Helen denied the allegations saying, “I don’t know Joy before. I only met her when she came with a baby begging me to help her.

“She said I should give her N30,000 and keep the baby till she returns. I had to give her the money and warned that she must return to take the baby and refund my N30,000.

“I even took her to my alter to swear that she will refund my N30,000 and take the baby and she agreed. The only mistake I made was that I didn’t ask her where she got the baby.”

But One of the arrested suspects, twenty year old Joy Olaka-Nworgu told newsmen that she was initiated by Prophetess Helen to steal children.

Also speaking, Christophanus Achogbo who is the father of one of the rescued children said that the suspect took advantage of his maid.

“Since February this year, we have been looking for my son, Daniel only for the Police to call me that he has been found. He was 1 year and 4 month-old in February.

“I didn’t believe that the Police can still find him. I just want to thank the Rivers Police for their efforts.”

Church of the Wild is pagan nature worship masquerading as Christianity

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

Women seem to be disproportionately prominent in the worship of false gods, and Church of the Wild is an excellent example; as reported by Hannah Natanson of The Washington Post, August 6, 2018:

The sound of drumming filtered through the trees and called the people from their cars.

Toting folding chairs and slathered in bug spray, they came from the parking lot — some young, some old; some in pairs, some alone; many in Tevas, a few barefoot. Without speaking, they set their chairs in a circle in a leafy clearing in McLean’s Turkey Run Park. They grabbed drums laid out on a patterned blanket, gripped the instruments between their knees and joined in the pounding.

“Your hands know what to do,” intoned professional drum circle facilitator Katy Gaughan. “Just drum! There is no right way and no wrong way.”

On a hot and muggy Sunday, Church of the Wild was about to begin.

The church, which meets once a month in parks across the District, Maryland and Virginia, draws about 50 congregants. Services, presided over by the Rev. Sarah Anders, typically run an hour and a half. Worshipers drum, sing and listen to recitations of poetry in an effort to connect with nature and fulfill the church’s stated goal: honoring “the mutual indwelling of the Divine with the Earth and all of its beings.”

Anders doesn’t preach a sermon — instead, attendees wander through their surroundings in total silence for about half an hour.

“We don’t say the G-o-d word a lot,” Anders said. “The emphasis is on God as a universal force. . . . Our mission is to help people come more into their spirits and their hearts.”

Anders established the church in partnership with Beth Norcross, founding director of the Center for Spirituality in Nature and an adjunct faculty member at the Wesley Theological Seminary in the District. Church of the Wild met for the first time in April.

Anders describes her congregation as a nondenominational Christian church, but says she draws on aspects of “all religions” — for example, services sometimes include readings from Jewish texts.

She and Norcross welcome agnostics. They say they hope the nontraditional atmosphere will allow them to better explore their faith and perhaps discover God.

Anders was ordained in the United Church of Christ, a liberal mainline Protestant denomination, and preached for a time at Rockville United Church in Maryland. She quit that job last year. Church of the Wild doesn’t pay her (or anyone) a salary, so she earns a living by giving guest sermons and leading religious workshops.

Anders said she left Rockville United because she couldn’t bear “tripping over” typical church language one minute longer. “God as a ‘He,’ people as ‘sinners’ — I couldn’t sit and hear it anymore,” Anders said. She also wanted to spend her Sundays outdoors; sitting in a sanctuary felt confining.

On Sunday, all anyone could hear for several minutes was banging. Then Gaughan stepped in to organize her charges, leading the group in a rhythm meant to imitate the beating of a heart.

“Heart — beat — space, heart — beat — space,” Gaugahn instructed them. “Here we are, one heart beating together.”

One woman nodded and removed her shoes, still drumming. Another closed her eyes.

Gaughan led the drummers to a crescendo — “We’re in the woods, you can be loud!” — before quieting them and ceding the circle to Anders.

“Our theme this month is spiritual listening with nature — not to nature, with nature, and with the other beings in nature,” Anders said. “We find that as we honor the divine in the Earth and all its beings, we become more compassionate.”

Sweating together at Turkey Run, congregants listened by practicing deep breathing. They listened by meditating for several minutes, guided into the subconscious by Anders. They listened as someone played a Native American instrument.

They listened even when they stood, grasped hands and repeatedly sang the chorus to the Alicia Keys song “We Are Here.” Anders said Keys’s lyrics — particularly the line, “We are here for all of us” — perfectly expresses the ideology of Church of the Wild. Congregants worship outdoors on behalf of “all of us,” including neighbors human and nonhuman.

It’s an idea that appears to be picking up support across the continent. There’s now a Wild Church Network that connects 15 outdoor churches from Texas to California to Canada. “It’s really a phenomenon,” Norcross said. “We’re one of many.”

In Virginia, Sunday’s sermon kicked off when Anders bid the group to “open your eyes and begin your wandering.” She invited them to “lean up” against vines and trunks — though “not that one,” given its wrapping of poison ivy.

Worshipers rose and dispersed. Some marched purposefully along forest paths; others walked slowly and deliberately toward nothing in particular.

For the next 20 minutes, no one spoke or made a sound beyond the occasional snapping of a twig. One woman took off her sandals and trod barefoot through the grass. A man in a red bandanna stood face-to-face with a tree and locked eyes with its trunk. Another man climbed a nearby picnic table, lay on his back and stared up into the green canopy, unblinking.

A woman in a pink shirt approached a small tree, leaned her forehead against its trunk and closed her eyes. She remained there for several minutes, snapping her chewing gum.

After the service, congregants chatted and snacked on ice pops and crackers doled out from a portable cooler. Milling among the others, 50-year-old Smithsonian employee Kelly Richmond said she has never been into organized religion, but Church of the Wild provides a way to see and appreciate the magic of nature while avoiding all that talk about a male God and the “power of the patriarchy.” Asked whether she believes in God, Richmond said she needs more information.

Kristina Byrne, a freelance writer who lives in Silver Spring and does consider herself religious, said she has come to every Church of the Wild service since its launch in April. Cradling her 2-year-old son Adisa on her hip, Byrne, 34, said that she has been worshiping by walking around the woods long before Church of the Wild began.

“To me, it’s like the woods and God are the same thing,” she said. “So it’s nice to see groups of people doing what I’ve always done.”

DNA reveals origins of 6,500-year-old skeletons found in Galilee

As reported by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich of Breaking Israel News, August 21, 2018 (links in original):

A pioneering international study led by Tel Aviv University (TAU) researchers who conducted DNA tests in skeletons placed 6,500 years in a burial cave in Peki’in reveals their origins.

According to the research, just published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications, the population of Peki’in in northern Israel was during the prehistoric Chalcolithic (“Copper Age”) Period – 4,500 to 3,900 BCE – a mixture of a local population with a group that arrived from northern Mesopotamia (today’s Turkey and Iran).

The cave was discovered in 1995, and the bones of some 600 people were uncovered. But the origin of the population was not known until now and it is considered a major archaeological breakthrough.

“These individuals were part of a homogeneous population that can be modeled as deriving 57% of its ancestry from groups related to those of the local Levant Neolithic, 17% from groups related to those of the Iran Chalcolithic, and 26% from groups related to those of the Anatolian Neolithic,” they wrote. “The Peki’in population also appears to have contributed differently to later Bronze Age groups, one of which we show cannot plausibly have descended from the same population as that of the Peki’in cave. These results provide an example of how population movements propelled cultural changes in the deep past.”

The research was led by Dr. Hila May and Prof. Israel Hershkovitz of the anatomy and anthropology department of TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Hershkovitz also works at the Dan David Center for Human History in the Faculty of Medicine. The study was carried out in cooperation with Dr. Dina Shalem of the Kinneret Institute of Galilean Archaeology and the Israel Antiquities Authority and Dr. David Reich, a leading geneticist at Harvard University Medical School.

Peki’in, whose name means “the little valley between mountains,” is believed to have been founded in the year 5,000 BCE. Today, it has a population of fewer than 6,000 people, almost all of them Druze. According to tradition, the Jewish community of Peki’in has maintained a presence there since the Second Temple period. The only time when Jews did not reside there was during the 1936 to 1939 Arab Revolt. Most Jews did not return to the village after the violence, and the only Jewish resident is 87-year-old Margalit Zinati, whose family did return to the village.

“The unique burial cave is a natural stalactite cave that was discovered in 1995 when a road was extended in Peki’in in the Upper Galilee,” Shalem noted. Objects such as potsherds of the Chalcolithic period were found in the village, and the burial site was close by, making a 100- dunam (25-acre) settlement a possibility.

The bodies were originally buried in graves, with the bones interred in secondary burials in jars and specially decorated clay ossuaries. These were decorated with sculpted images of human faces, including ears, eyes, beard, and sometimes hands and breasts.

The period’s impressive metal artifacts, which reflect the first known use of the “lost wax” technique for casting of copper, attest to the extraordinary technical skill of the people of this period, they wrote.

The cave, around 17 meters long and 4.5 to 8 meters wide, was sealed by natural processes during or around the end of the Late Chalcolithic period (around 3900 BCE). Archaeological excavations have revealed an extraordinary array of finely crafted objects, including chalices, bowls, and churns, as well as more than 200 ossuaries and domestic jars repurposed as ossuaries (the largest number ever found in a single cave), often decorated with anthropomorphic designs.

During the two decades since the discovery, researchers have wondered whether the population that buried its dead in the cave migrated to another part of the region and brought with it new cultural elements or whether they were a local population that adopted ideas from neighboring cultures through trade relations.

“In the first place, it was clear that only genetic research could answer this question, but the chances were slim,” explained May. “Most of the genetic tests performed on prehistoric populations from the land of Israel failed or, when they succeeded, provided little information.”

Fortunately for the researchers, DNA sequences were preserved, albeit partially, in the bones of 22 individuals in the cave – a larger number than a single site in terms of genetic research of prehistoric populations.

Hershkowitz added that “the genetic material was apparently preserved due to the special climatic conditions prevailing in the cave and the limestone coating of the bones, which were created by the dripping of water through the ceiling of the cave and the fact that they were isolated from the surrounding area.”

Reich of Harvard noted: “The genetic study indicates that this is a homogenous population different from the populations that preceded it in the region. The mixing of the populations led to the penetration of genes that were not found in the local populations, such as the blue eyes and the light skin color.”

May further noted that “no genetic continuity was found between the population of Peki’in and the Chalcolithic population of later populations.” This indicates another demographic change in the region that led to the disappearance of the Chalcolithic culture.

Ossuaries from the Chalcolithic period, excavated at Peki’in cave

Decorated burial jar from the Chalcolithic period excavated at Peki’in cave

Cave in Peki’in where ancient bones were discovered

Click on the link to see the original article Ancient DNA from Chalcolithic Israel reveals the role of population mixture in cultural transformation in Nature Communications, 9:3336, August 20, 2018

70 years ago: The World Council of Churches is founded

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

On August 23, 1948, the World Council of Churches officially came into being, the day after the opening of its first assembly in Amsterdam, attended by 450 delegates and 1,000 officials of Protestant and Orthodox churches from 42 countries. The assembly was boycotted by the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches.

The World Council of Churches is the largest organization representing the religion of anti-Christian liberalism in Christian dress. The best comment I've ever seen on the WCC was from Malcolm Muggeridge, who said that the WCC was like a row of drunks holding one another up, lest alone they each fall into the gutter.

See also my post 70 years ago--The International Council of Christian Churches is founded (August 19, 2018).

Kansas pastor resigns after being charged with child sex crime

As reported by Chance Swaim of the Wichita Eagle, July 14, 2018 (links in original):

A Sedgwick pastor was arrested in Harvey County Friday on suspicion of a child sex crime, according to the Harvey County Sheriff’s Office.

Kevin Berry, the lead pastor at First Christian Church of Sedgwick, was arrested on suspicion of indecent liberties with a child.

Berry began ministering in Sedgwick in 2015, according to the First Christian Church of Sedgwick website. Before that, he worked in Amoret, Missouri, where he ministered for six years, the site says.

The case has been presented to the Harvey County district attorney, who will decide if he will charge Berry, who is being held on $25,000 bond.

As reported by Mr. Swaim and Katherine Burgess of the Wichita Eagle on August 4, 2018 (links in original):

The First Christian Church of Sedgwick took the side of its pastor, who has been charged with a child sex crime, over its children, according to a couple who pulled their children out of the church after they saw how its leaders handled the situation.

One of the parents’ complaints is that the church leadership allowed the pastor to participate in children’s activities after it knew the pastor — Kevin Berry — was being investigated for a child sex crime.

A video posted on the church’s website shows he was allowed to participate in a children’s activity after the church told parents he would not.

Berry, lead minister at First Christian Church of Sedgwick, was arrested July 13 on suspicion of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. That’s more than a year after a police reports says the sex crime could have started and almost 10 months after it was reported to police.

After allegations were made against Berry in September, the church sent an Oct. 8 letter to churchgoers informing them that Berry was being investigated and saying the “church leadership firmly supports our pastor (Kevin Berry).”

The letter said Berry voluntarily chose to no longer participate in children’s activities at the church while he was under investigation.

Summer and Curtis Peters, whose children attended the church’s youth group, said they don’t think Berry actually refrained from participating in children’s activities.

A video posted on the church’s YouTube account two months after the letter was sent shows Berry narrating a children’s Christmas pageant. Near the end of the video, a woman says that Berry and his wife helped write the children’s play and were “such a vital part of all of this.”

The Peterses, who attended Berry’s church until the fall, said their teenage children were regular attendees of the youth group but stopped going after they saw how church leadership handled allegations against Berry.

Reached by phone, Berry referred all questions about the investigation to his attorney, who did not respond to The Eagle’s requests for comment.

David Hewett, an elder at the church, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The church also did not provide the requested full text of a letter it says it sent to churchgoers in October.

Berry was charged with aggravated indecent liberties with a child, a felony.

The police report, which is heavily redacted and includes the original report by the Sedgwick Police Department and a supplemental report by the Harvey County Sheriff’s Office, says the alleged crime happened at the listed address of the First Christian Church, which shares an address with Little Hands Preschool.

The Sedgwick police report lists the offense dates of Aug. 21, 2017, to Sept. 25, 2017, the date the report was made. The Harvey sheriff’s report lists June 1, 2017, to Sept. 23, 2017.

The complaint filed in Harvey County District Court says the alleged crime occurred around mid-September.

The Peters family’s concerns with Berry began in September, when a neighbor told them to check if their own teenage daughter was OK.

The couple then spoke with a youth leader, who is no longer with the church, and several children, asking if anything at church made them feel uncomfortable.

What the children said “raised flags” about inappropriate behavior on the part of the pastor, Curtis Peters said. Later that Sunday evening, as rumors buzzed through the town of fewer than 2,000, church members, elders, children and the pastor gathered to discuss the concerns.

“When the kids saw the pastor in the room, they truly felt uncomfortable,” Summer Peters said. “They were scared to say anything, scared to speak up.”

Elders in the church chastised the concerned parents, including the Peterses, and acted as if the children were lying, Summer Peters said.

It was implied that law enforcement was not needed, Curtis Peters said.

“From that point on, it just didn’t seem like the church really was concerned about the kids as much as they were about the pastor,” Curtis Peters said. “I don’t feel like they really did anything to distance the pastor from the situation.”

Curtis Peters said he reported the sex crimes, which he did not want to describe to The Eagle, to the police.

The church did not put Berry on administrative leave until July, when it did so at Berry’s request, a statement released after his arrest said. A March statement by the church said Berry had begun “personal counseling and will receive further training on leading and appropriate interaction with children and youth.”

Both the July and March letters say that the church leadership supports Berry.

As reported by Mr. Swaim on August 9, 2018:

Kevin Berry — a Sedgwick pastor charged with a child sex crime — has resigned from his position at First Christian Church of Sedgwick, a church official said.

Berry was on voluntary leave after being arrested and charged last month with aggravated indecent liberties with a child. The church publicly supported Berry throughout a 10-month investigation into the allegations and allowed him to be involved in at least one children’s activity after the church told parents he would not.

Sunday, The Eagle reported that a video on the church’s website showed Berry participating in a children’s activity during that time.

Monday, the church took down its website, where the video had been, and its Facebook page, which had two posts stating the church leadership’s support for Berry.

John Hubert, a church leader at First Christian Church, said he is “under strict instructions from the church’s lawyer . . . not to discuss with any newspaper or any media our situation.” But he said he was willing to confirm Berry has resigned.

“We had a meeting Sunday and have hired an interim minister who specializes in rescuing churches like ours who have some division as a result of indecision or decisions that didn’t meet with approval of everybody,” Hubert said.

“We’ve taken the biblical approach rather than the secular-humanist worldview of how to solve problems — and it hasn’t resulted in the most positive results. But it’s resulted in the results that we can biblically live with, so things are moving forward now.

“I’m happy with the results, and I’m going to keep following the instructions that we’re getting from our new interim minister and we look forward to a brighter future,” Hubert said.

Hubert would not comment on the website or Facebook page.

Berry has directed all questions to his attorney, who has not returned phone calls from The Eagle.

Berry, lead minister at First Christian Church of Sedgwick, was arrested July 13. That’s more than a year after a police report says the sex crime could have started almost 10 months after it was reported to police.

The complaint filed in Harvey County District Court says the alleged crime occurred around mid-September.

The church did not put Berry on administrative leave until July, when it did so at Berry’s request, a statement released after his arrest said.