Do you remember the time the Evangelist Christians were wary of Russia?. No, really, they were. I know it is hard to believe especially since one of the leading Evangelists Franklin Graham posted on his Facebook last year before the meeting between Trump and Putin: “The media and enemies of President Trump have tried to drive a wedge between Russia and the United States,. Our country needs Russia as an ally in the fight against Islamic terrorism. Join me in praying for President Trump and President Vladimir Putin as they have this very strategic meeting.”
Well, you do know that Trump has modestly stated in an interview with the Wall Street Journal “I know more about wedges than any human being that’s ever lived, . . .” I suppose because of that we need not do much praying about any wedges between the USA and Russia. We must assume Trump can handle them without divine intervention.
But I’m having trouble reconciling how the animosities of the Evangelists to Russia changed so drastically to the point they are interested in having a cozy Russian relationship. There was a time as I recall “Back in 1983, Ronald Reagan labeled the Soviet Union an “evil empire” during remarks before evangelical Christians in Florida. The president was warning about a buildup of Soviet strength and global menace, and the need to confront it.” He was greeted after that remark with a standing ovation. It was more than the Evangelists were of the mind we should be wary of Russia; it was they were ready to accept Russia as an “evil empire.” How does such a position change so that they are now fretting that we don’t have it as a best friend.
Is it that Evangelists believe Russia is no longer an “evil empire?” Or is it that they believe we have become an “evil empire” ourselves so that our values do not differ from Russia’s? It is difficult for me to reconcile the preachings of Kenneth Copeland a highly successful Evangelist preacher with a huge following who is said to be worth three-quarters of a billion dollars who told his flock “if they don’t vote they will be gulty of murder and an abomination of God” (without saying who they should vote for but leaving it clear it was not Hillary Clinton) but then added that: “God Almighty is the head of this nation and Jesus of Nazareth is Lord over the United States” with the idea that Evangelists believe America is the evil empire. Copeland would not accept that the Lord would let America become evil nor do I believe most Evangelists would.
Therefore do we assume Evangelists believe Russia is no longer evil. But I cannot put my hands on what it is that would have caused this great metamorphosis. Russia right now is involved in a hot war in Europe in Eastern Ukraine that has resulted in over 10,000 deaths. It has actively and continues to actively involve itself in our domestic elections. It has joined with China in a military block against our country. It works with North Korea to destabilize the Korean peninsula and will be an ally of North Korea as it was in the first Korean War.
It seems though there is a middle position. The Evangelists believe they must unite with Russia to save Christianity in America from the evils of modernism. An article by Pat Buchanon in 2014 tells how it is “Russia that is on God’s side. The West is Gomorrah.” He tells us Putin’s “Moscow is the Godly City of today and command post of the counter-reformation against the new paganism.” He writes of the “the sewage of a hedonistic secular and social revolution “. . . in the West. This sewage he defines as:”capitulation to a sexual revolution of easy divorce, rampant promiscuity, pornography, homosexuality, feminism, abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, assisted suicide — the displacement of Christian values by Hollywood values.”
Is Buchanon correst that Evangelists see Moscow as “The Third Rome.” Surely he does not think they are going to align themselves with their long time enemies the Catholics and subject themselves to the Pope’s supremacy.
I would love to know what a “very strategic” meeting is.
I have discussed the work of University of Maine Orono Sociology
professor Kyriacos Markides in previous posts.
He is one of the leading research scholars on the Russian and Greek
Monasteries located on the remote greek island of
Mount Athos.
Born on Cyprus Markides has dedicated his life to studying
the world of spirit manifesting in miracles.
The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality Paperback – November 19, 2002
by Kyriacos C. Markides (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars 117 customer reviews
Riding with the Lion: In Search of Mystical Christianity Paperback – January 1, 1996
by Kyriacos C. Markides (Author)
Fire in the Heart: Healers, Sages, and Mystics Paperback – July 1, 1992
by Kyriacos C. Markides (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 15 customer revi
Gifts of the Desert: The Forgotten Path of Christian Spirituality Paperback – October 18, 2005
by Kyriacos C. Markides (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars 38 customer review
in other……..
Epistilating for the “Big Mac” and the crew at FBI HQ
FBI informant Joey Aceto was planted in the SCAR group
while it’s members were still in prison.
Joey Aceto was the one who pushed for violence. The
FBI provided Joey Aceto with the explosives
used in the bombings. The explosives were stored
at his home.
Were FBI agents Rico and Connolly involved as Joey Aceto’s handlers?
see newspaper story here
You should also google aceto scar maine
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2209&dat=19770201&id=gqcrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=5vwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6999,162524&hl=en
see link for background on FBI informant
Joey Aceto
http://www.oocities.org/tom-manning/snitch.html
FBI SNITCH SENTENCED TO LIFE
In the series of trials which followed the capture of the Ohio 7, the government relied heavily upon the testimony of an informant named Joseph Aceto (aka: Joseph Balino), a former member of Statewide Correctional Alliance for Reform (SCAR), a prisoners-rights organization founded in Portland, Maine during the early 1970s by Tom Manning and Ray Luc Levasseur. Aceto offered considerable “evidence” concerning the original formation of the SMJJ, its evolution into UFF, and supposedly first-hand recollections of the defendants’ having described their bombing and bank-robbing exploits to him. Only later did it emerge conclusively that the government’s star witness had consistently lied under oath, passing off third-hand gossip and utter fabrications as conversations in which he himself had participated. It also came out that Aceto had been diagnosed as psychotic and administered heavy doses of the tranquilizer Mellaril – to “increase his veracity” – prior to testimony. To top things off, it was revealed that, in exchange for such testimony, the FBI had arranged for him to be released from prison where he was serving a life sentence for a brutal stabbing murder and placed on the federal witness protection program (a package with an $800 per month stipend). All this information had been withheld from the defense – and consequently from the jury – at trial.
FROM – The COINTELPRO Papers, Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars, Against Dissent in the United States by Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall
Mellaril is a serious anti-psycho zonk drug , not unlike Thorazine . We whipped a bunch of anti-psychotics from the med locker at Mass Mental . I was part of a CETA Program work crew that painted the entire interior of the Fenwood Ave. Sanitarium in ‘ 77 . This excluded the locked floors . The Crew held up admirably during the State Police investigation . The stuff was so nasty though that I flushed it .
Good Times !
Levasseur and Tom Manning killed a State Trooper .
Not Good !
Revolutionaries . They were … Committed .
They should have been shot .
This appears to confuse the non-acceptance of the authority of the Pope in Rome with atheism. 1200 years ago, the center of religious and secular culture for Eastern Europe was Constantinople, not Rome.
“The Orthodox Church is the one Church founded by Jesus Christ and his apostles, begun at the day of Pentecost with the descent of the Holy Spirit in the year 33 A.D. It is also known (especially in the contemporary West) as the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Greek Orthodox Church. It may also be called the Orthodox Catholic Church, the Orthodox Christian Church, the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, or simply the Church.
The bishops of the Orthodox Churches trace unbroken succession to the very apostles themselves, therefore ultimately receiving their consecrations from our Lord Jesus Christ. All the bishops of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, no matter their titles, are equal in their sacramental office. The various titles given to bishops are simply administrative or honorific in their essence. At an ecumenical council, each bishop may cast only one vote, whether he is the Ecumenical Patriarch or simply an auxiliary bishop without a diocese. Thus, there is no equivalent to the Roman Catholic papacy within the Eastern Orthodox Churches.”
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Orthodox_Church
Thanks, Ed.
About 10 years ago I swapped a Kramer electric
guitar for a 1973 Gibson acoustic that had a broken
headstock with my friend Robbie Bothen of Bar
Harbor Maine..
Robbie was a drummer, a scuba diver, sailor and
ex con who was an original founder of the 1970 Maine
prison reform group SCAR .
Other members of the group included Ray Levasseur
who was recently released from Federal prison for
the 1970’s bombing of the Central Maine building in
Augusta Maine.and ex con Alan Caron who is currently
a candidate for Governor of Maine.
see
https://www.pressherald.com/2017/09/11/alan-caron-may-be-next-to-enter-2018-governors-race/
I first met the group members in 1973 when I was working
as a probation parole liason at Tri County Mental Health in
Lewiston Maine. I had invited them to speak at a forum on
prison conditions in Maine.
At that time the group was infiltrated by FBI informants who
were guiding the group towards building and exploding bombs
as a means of self expression.
More recently I had my last paid gig playing bass in Robbie Bothens’s
band in a rural Maine township.
I took the Gibson guitar I swapped with Robbie over to my guitar builder
neighbor in Wilton Bill Russo who put a new neck on the guitar.
Bill is a world class guitar builder and a evangelical christian.
Every time I visit his shop he pressures me to go to church with
him on Sunday.
see
http://www.wrcustomguitars.com
I explain to him that posting at the MTC Irregulars website fulfills
all my needs for speaking in word salad tongues.
Damn , Freeh … Levasseur huh ? … Why don’t you post more about these characters you’ve run across rather than the Spam epistles on the FBI . Not all Spam , but enough to perceive as Spam . You may be Batman !
” At that time the group was infiltrated by FBI informants who were guiding the group towards building and exploding bombs as a means of self-expression . ”
Thatzahhhhh’ pretty good .
I love the Evangelicals. Great people. True Christians. I know many; many are great friends of mine. The best. Great Americans, too.
I am a big supporter of Focus on the Family. Have been for decades. Many Roman Catholics understand the unity of vision and belief shared with their Christian and Judaeo-Christian brothers and sisters in Christ. One Holy, Universal, Church, the Communion of Saints, the Trinity, life everlasting, Amen, Jesus our Savior.
2. It was President Ronald Reagan himself who said in 1988 speaking at a Conference (I recall) with Gorbachev and others who said that Russia and the Soviet Union were no longer to be considered an “evil empire.” President Reagan recognized the Soviet Union was pulling out of Afghanistan and had made great strides in ensuring fundamental freedoms and expanding religious freedom at home in Russia and also entered into key treaties with the United States.
3. The Words of St. Paul to the Gallations (1:13) was about the mandate to Love . . .
“Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude; it is not self-seeking; it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil (or others’ sufferings or losses) but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” abridged version . . . Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice’s sake . . .”
Scripture tells us to Spread the Word to All Nations.
4. I am proud to be a Roman Catholic who strongly affiliates with Evangelicals.
5. Russia has come a long way forward into the Modern World. There are reactionary elements in Russia and in Ukraine who want to re-fight and re-litigate ancient animosities.
Seek peace! Desist from beating war drums and casting ancient epithets at good people, men and women of good will.
I doubt the Russian Orthodox Church is eager to hook up with David and Louise Turpin, the U.S. evangelical Couple of the Year, or any other moral icon on the fundamentalist scene.
What did General Patton say at the end of World War 2? The Trump era is remembered for corporate tax cuts that brought billions of dollars back to the United States. It should also be remembered for so many members of the administration having financial ties to Russia. Russia has been the enemy for my entire lifetime and the idea that that has changed is beyond reason. Just as Vietnam, the Pentagon Papers and Watergate created distrust and anger among people of that time , the Russian affairs of the Trump administration are like a horror movie that never ends.
Matt, do you find it difficult to distinguish an apple from an orange? They are both fruits. The ease with which you elide from Russia to the USSR and back and forth again and again amazes. Most of the twistifications of policy result from a basic fact: Nations have no friends, only, interests.
You display a great animus against Evangelicals. It has the rank odor of Hatred. Or, perhaps, servitude. The left has ever been the cats-paw of factions dedicated to the overthrow of the purpose of the Republic that was established “to secure the blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our Posterity.” Admit it, you envy and despise those
who, perhaps, were foolish enough to share that Liberty with you and yours.
America got along well with Russia until that unhappy land was wrenched from its natives. The siren you choose to be enthralled with was well described two days past by an editorial decision made by a webzine, Russia Insider. It is reasoned and measured. It could inform as to what faction’s tune you are dancing to.
http://russia-insider.com/en/its-time-drop-jew-taboo/ri22186
It echoes the shrewd analysis of Fr. Charles Coughlin nearly eighty years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMoHwYZAlD8
It is fully understood that this information and reasoning will not be met by honest debating points but only with calumny and puerile name-calling.
Matt’s attitude towards the evangelic contingent in the U.S. is one of disgust and amazement, much like rest of non-evangelicals. Disgust in the complete hypocrisy these folks exhibit regarding their values, how they view modern liberalism, and how they let the multitude of Trump’s completely un-Christian actions/policies slide, or even worse, they fervently support them.
I think Matt is amazed ( so am I) at at their extreme cognitive dissonance. I can’t for the life of me believe how easily these folks can twist themselves in knots trying to defend the indefensible. Tadzio….you too amaze me.
ah, but you see, according to Putler, the sovok union/Roosha has been “Christian” all along:
Last week Putin attempted to square this circle with a truly Orwellian formulation: Communism was Christianity. No–really:
“Maybe I’ll say something that someone might dislike, but that’s the way I see it,” Putin said in an interview for the documentary Valaam, an excerpt of which was broadcast on Russia 1. “First of all, faith has always accompanied us, becoming stronger every time our country, our people, have been through hard times.
“There were those years of militant atheism when priests were eradicated, churches destroyed, but at the same time a new religion was being created. Communist ideology is very similar to Christianity, in fact: freedom, equality, brotherhood, justice – everything is laid out in the Holy Scripture, it’s all there. And the code of the builder of communism? This is sublimation, it’s just such a primitive excerpt from the Bible, nothing new was invented.”
Look, Lenin was put in a mausoleum. How is this different from the relics of saints for Orthodox Christians and just for Christians? When they say that there’s no such tradition in Christianity, well, how come, go to Athos and take a look, there are relics of the saints there, and we have holy relics here,” Putin concluded.
http://streetwiseprofessor.com/?p=10799#comments