Christian Freedom in the U.S., Russia, Israel and Brazil

By Julio Severo

Even though overwhelmingly evangelical in its origin, the United States does not privilege today evangelicalism and the U.S. government clearly does not favor it. In the U.S. religious freedom, all the religions are equal. So the evangelicalism that founded the U.S. is officially in the same level as Islam, Hinduism, Catholicism, witchcraft, etc.

According to this U.S. equality system, officially Jesus Christ is in the same level as Mohammed, Beelzebub and Satan. In fact, in American schools you can pray to Satan and recite the Islamic Koran, but you cannot pray to Jesus Christ or recite the Bible.

According to this system, the U.S. government cannot honor its evangelical foundation above Islam, Hinduism, Catholicism, witchcraft, etc. If the U.S. government wants religious partnership, it cannot give preference to evangelicalism. It is obliged to give equal partnership to Islam, Hinduism, Catholicism, witchcraft, etc.

In Russia, which is the largest Christian Orthodox country in the world, there is no such equality. The Christian Orthodox Church is recognized by the Russian government as the largest Christian religion in Russia. Catholics and evangelicals, who are 2 percent of the Russian population, are second-rate religious citizens. Orthodoxies have their reasons to do it with Catholics, considering that the Vatican has always antagonized the Orthodox Church, seeing it as an opponent of its supremacy.

Orthodoxies seem to bear a grudge against Catholics because of an invasion of Catholic crusaders in Constantinople, which was the capital of the Orthodox Church. Constantinople was looted, raped and victimized because of this old hatred. Even though with its focus largely on Muslims, the Catholic Crusades victimized also multitudes of innocent Jews and Orthodox Christians. But evangelicals never acted this way toward Orthodox Christians. Then Orthodoxies should not put evangelicals in Russia as second-rate religious citizens.

Brazil imitates the U.S. in religious freedom. In the recent Olympic Games in Brazil, football player Neymar, who is a nominal evangelical, was criticized by the Olympic Committee because he used a headband titled “100% JESUS.” But the same Olympic Committee did not criticize the official closing of the Olympic Games, which showed fetishistic sorcerers and a blatant glorification of Afro-Brazilian religions (which are similar to voodoo).

Many Christians protested that it was discriminatory. But what did they want? Did they want the same respect and consideration afforded to demons to be equally granted to Jesus? Did they want Jesus to be equated with demons?

In the equality democracy, Jesus is no better than a voodoo demon or Satan. In Jornalismo TV Cultura (Brazilian Culture TV News) on August 20, 2015 Brazilian historian Leandro Karnal said, “If it is forbidden to mock or insult religions, an issue being considered in Rio de Janeiro, let us remember that Satanism is also a religion and when an evangelical minister begins to expel the devil of someone, we can fine him because he is insulting the faith of a Satanist, because the devil also produces a religion. Whoever wants to attack the devil, whip the devil should also be fined because he is insulting faith on Satan.” You can watch his comments here: https://youtu.be/VkXm3nOm-rg

Many can think that the fight for legal equality is helpful, but it is bringing more rights to Satan and his demons and does not glorify Jesus, and to glorify Jesus is the most important mission for a Christian. A Christian’s mission is not to fight for Jesus to have, in democracy, the same worth as Satan and his demons.

Whether laws acknowledge it or not, Jesus is above demons and Satan, who are fallen creatures condemned to Hell. He is the Creator and Lord. It is blasphemous to agree with laws that equate fallen creatures with the Lord who creates, saves and changes.

I do not like the current American system that equates Jesus with Beelzebub. If risen today, George Washington would fight this system, because he supported the practice, common in the U.S. beginnings, that all politicians, to be inaugurated, should swear, with his hand on the Bible, that he believed in the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And I do not like the Russian system that puts the Orthodox Church as a Christian church above evangelical churches. But the current U.S. system seems the worst.

Yet, if the U.S. thinks the Russian system worse, why not criticize Israel too? Just as in Russia, evangelicals in Israel are no more than 2 percent. Pew Research Center has identified Israel as one of the countries that places high restrictions on religion. Pew said,

“But the list of countries with high restrictions also contains some that are widely seen as democratic, such as… Israel. Israel’s score is driven up by… its preferential treatment of Orthodox Jews. The government recognizes only Orthodox Jewish religious authorities in some personal status matters (such as marriage) concerning Jews and devotes the bulk of state funds provided for religion to Orthodox Jews, even though they make up only a small portion of all Jews in Israel.”

In his book “Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians” (Thomas Nelson, 2013), Paul Marshall says,

“In another instance, in Israel, proselytism is legal as long as no material benefits are offered for conversion. But elements within the government sometimes act as though this isn’t so. People suspected of being missionaries have been denied visas and sometimes detained and required to post bail and pledge not to evangelize. There are also occasional mob attacks on churches or other buildings hosting converts.”

In comparison with Islamic nations, Israel offers much more freedom to Christians. But in comparison with the U.S., Israel offers them less freedom. In fact, if in the U.S. the Jews were treated as Christians are treated in Israel, there would be complaints of “anti-Semitism.”

The same reality is applicable to Russia. In comparison with Islamic countries, Russia offers much more freedom to Christians. But just as Israel protects and privileges its main religion, Russia does the same thing for the Russian Orthodox Church.

Therefore, the U.S. media’s hysteria against Russia is baseless. When Russia establishes some restriction for non-registered religious activities, the U.S. media cries “censorship” and a “return of the Soviet Union.” But this same media does not cry anything over the Israeli restrictions on activities of Christian evangelism in Israel. In fact, it remains silent.

The media, which makes a great stir against Russia, does not make the same stir against Saudi Arabia, which murders Christians and bans the Bible and worship meetings. The only difference seems to be that Russia is a political enemy of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is officially a “friend.” Just as Israel, Russia does not murder Christians and does not ban the Bible and registered worship meetings.

Evidently, all these nations need a powerful change.

Israel needs a revival, to live the wonders of Messiah Jesus Christ.

Russia needs a revival, to understand that better than the Russian Orthodox Church is to live for Jesus Christ.

The U.S. and Brazil need a revival, to stop equating Jesus and Satan and putting them in the same level in their laws of religious freedom.

The Pink Swastika author Scott Lively, who is very familiar with the religious-freedom challenges in the U.S. and Russia, has offered his comment for my blog:

In this age-old conflict of doctrinal camps, it is important to recognize the failure of all denominations and church institutions to fully reflect “The Way of the Messiah” as it taught in the Whole Bible. Any religious movement or institution that pretends to speak for God or provide the “one true path” to fellowship with Him commits the sin of arrogance. None of the Apostles claimed infallibility and their perspectives varied widely, resolving their differences practically (by voting). Paul addressed the question of doctrinal disputes squarely in 1 Corinthians, admonishing the church “do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes.” In the meantime, we should seek the spiritual unity of ALL believers in Christ on the points on which we can agree — including the Torah-faithful Jews who simply haven’t yet recognized Jesus as the Messiah — and approach our differences with charity and humility.  

Portuguese version of this article: Liberdade cristã nos EUA, Rússia, Israel e Brasil

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Conservative Babylon in “Persecuted”: Hybrid Televangelist Framed by Pagan Neocon, and the Free Speech or Patriotic or Equality “Gospel” Replacing the Gospel of Jesus Christ

A New Russian Law Against Christians?

At Mosque, Brazil Celebrates First Place in Religious Freedom

Orthodox Extremist Equates Charismatic Revival withLiberation Theology

Orthodox Extremist Equals Charismatic Revival to Liberation Theology

By Julio Severo

Does Liberation Theology equate with a charismatic revival? No way. In fact, the best opposition to Liberation Theology has come from charismatic, Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal Christians.

Yet, enemies of charismatic revivals will use any excuse to attack what the Holy Spirit is doing in our days. Recently, a radical Orthodox Christian in an article entitled “Liberation Theology — a KGB Invention?” said:

“This is where everything comes full-circle, and really shows that everything that seems opposed is really of the same! It certainly explains a lot, and also offers a solid ground for understanding what we have noted since the beginning – that the current Moscow political and religious authorities are trying to take Orthodoxy down the road of charismatic revival, by posing as the saviours of Christianity from under the rule of a Western (or Muslim) dictatorship, thus appearing as the liberators of humanity from under the rule of the coming ruthless ‘antichrist.’ This subject has been most written about on our website and much can be found about in our past articles.”

This nonsensical criticism was posted in the website Orthodox Views.

When the author says that Liberation Theology being created by the KGB “certainly explains a lot,” he seems to suggest that the Charismatic Movement also was created by the KGB. By the way, according to a conservative Catholic source in Brazil, Liberation Theology ideas were present in the Catholic Church before the birth of the Soviet Union and its KGB.

What does the Charismatic Movement have to do with the KGB and Liberation Theology? Nothing. Nevertheless, the radical Orthodox author insists that “current Moscow political and religious authorities are trying to take Orthodoxy down the road of charismatic revival.”

Presumably, in his view, what these authorities are doing is as wicked as Liberation Theology.

I know this radical traditionalist religious modus operandi. (By radical traditionalist I mean mostly “cessationist” people. For more information, see this link: http://bit.ly/1OX58vq) When traditionalist Protestant Brazilians say, even in their theological essays published in the United States, that there are spiritual problems in the Brazilian Church, largely they mean charismatics, Pentecostals and neo-Pentecostals and their (lack of) theology.

Even the Lausanne Movement, in its meetings in Brazil influenced by these traditionalist Protestants, only addresses these “problems.” Incredibly, the Lausanne Movement met in Brazil in 2014 to discuss Pentecostal problems when its leader, Rev. Valdir Steuernagel, comes from a Lutheran denomination where Liberation Theology is rampant, and gay theology is tolerated. The most prominent gay theologian in Brazil is a theology professor in Steuernagel’s denomination.

The real problem in the Evangelical Church in Brazil is the Theology of Integral Mission, which is the Protestant version of Liberation Theology.

Whether radical Orthodoxies or Protestants, they need excuses to attack charismatics, Pentecostals and neo-Pentecostals, and now do they want to use KGB and Liberation Theology, which is rampant among Catholics, Protestants and Orthodoxies, as an additional pretext?

If, as the radical Orthodox complainer said, “the current Moscow political and religious authorities are trying to take Orthodoxy down the road of charismatic revival,” this is just wonderful!

If they really advance in this road, they will be able to help Christianity in Russia to survive pro-sodomy Western politically correct dictatorships and Muslim dictatorships.

The charismatic and Pentecostal movement in Russia is not new. In fact, it has greatly blessed the United States, by playing a significant or prominent role in the famous Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, California.

And, yes, a charismatic revival can save Russia. Before the Turkish Islamic genocide against Armenian Christians, a Russian Pentecostal boy received prophetic warnings that Christians should flee Armenia and Turkey. Those who believed in the prophetic warning were saved. Those who disbelieved were destroyed by Islamic Turkey.

The Orthodox Church, whose priests are married and have families, has no pope. It split from the Catholic Church 1,000 years ago. Russia is today the largest Orthodox Christian nation in the world.

Radical Orthodoxies should stop criticizing what the Holy Spirit is doing to save Russians.

If actually “the current Moscow political and religious authorities are trying to take Orthodoxy down the road of charismatic revival,” they should be encouraged, not discouraged, in this spiritually victorious road.

Portuguese version of this article: Extremista ortodoxo iguala reavivamento pentecostal com teologia da libertação

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

The Perfect Revival?

A Charismatic Response to “The Growing Crisis Behind Brazil’s Evangelical Success Story”

R.C. Sproul: There Is No True Prophecy Today

Armenia, the first Christian nation in the world, and the first genocide in the 20th century

Lausanne, Theology of Integral Mission and Israel

Did Russians in L.A. “found” Pentecostalism?

Liberation Theology, a KGB Invention? That Is Way Too Simple...

Jewish Issues: A Clarification to Christians about Their Perception on the Jews

Beheadings, Crucifixions, the Inquisition, the Crusades, Pogroms, Spits and Socialism

By Julio Severo

Sometimes, I receive accusations from Christians, who say that I emphasize Muslim persecution against Christians in the Middle East, but I never mention how the Jews also persecute Christians.

Actually, I have never published a single article on Jews in Israel beheading and crucifying Christians. On the other hand, I have already published many articles on Muslims committing such atrocities.

The reason for it is not omission or some attempt to hide alleged beheadings and crucifixions the Jews would be committing against Christians.

The reason is simple: these atrocities against Christians are never perpetrated by Jews — unless you want to compare a spittle with beheadings and crucifixions.

Yes, Orthodox Jews — a minority in Israel that really practices Judaism — despise Christians, and they show this contempt by spitting. It is a nasty act, but very far away from beheadings and crucifixions.

The Israeli society is not dominated by Orthodox Jews. Besides, as usual in the Christendom, Judaism has several currents: liberal, moderate, Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox. Even so, there are no beheaders and crucifiers among them. There are spitters…

What is the motivation of spits and contempt? Many of them are resentful of the Inquisition and the Crusades, which savaged many Jews. But they do not distinguish between Christians. They think that every Christian is responsible for the Inquisition and for the Crusades, when in reality only the Catholic Church began and finished these things.

In their minds, the acts of the Catholic Church against the Jews are acts of all Christian churches. It is a mistaken perception. Even with this mistaken perception, they do not behead or crucify Christians in retribution for the Inquisition and the Crusades.

Yet, not only Jews have a mistaken perception. Christians who love Israel sometimes exaggerate their love by worshipping everything done in Israel. In a worship service in a large church in Brasília, Brazil, I heard a minister preaching about the alleged wonders of kibutzes — collective farms where everybody eat in a communal refectory and children are brought up in communal daycares. Kibutzes have no origin in the Bible. Its origin is socialist European Jews who settled in Israel in the early 1900s.

Yes, there is socialism in Israel. The only nation in the Middle East having legal abortion and gay parades is Israel.

The Israeli military draft is compulsory for men and women. While in the U.S. conservatives had been fighting for years to hinder their military from drafting women for combats, Israel has followed this socialist model for years.

The Israeli love for socialism is also despised by the Orthodox Jews. In fact, this Israeli love for socialism has often been used by their enemies to paint the Jews as wicked.

In Brazil, the Jews, except the Orthodox ones, are traditional supporters of the Left, including the ruling socialist Workers’ Party. In the United States, the overwhelming majority of the Jews support Obama’s party — a party that has been in the opposite direction of the interests of Israel and the real Christians.

How explain Jews’ love for socialism? Because Karl Marx was a Jew?

One of the explanations may be in the czarist Russia. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the czar sanctioned laws against the Jews, and it produced the infamous pogroms — violent attacks against the Jews and their properties.

Those attacks were supported by leaders connected to the Orthodox Church, which was not acting in a way different from the Inquisition and the Crusades of her sister, the Catholic Church.

Facing the extreme persecution from the czarist government, the Russian Jews had only two options: 1. To flee for the U.S. (which was the largest Protestant nation in the world). To flee for an Europe under Catholic influence was not in their considerations. 2. To resist and fight.

For those not fleeing for the U.S., the chosen resistance was to support Marxist movements, which gave rise to the Soviet Union. Jews’ enemies use this episode to try to portray the Jews as the creators of this evil empire, but this was not the case. By an issue of sheer survival and to end pogroms, Russian Jews gave their support to the communist revolution and the creation of the Soviet Union.

If it were possible for them, they would also have supported some way of resistance to escape the Inquisition and the Crusades.

Pogroms were a so terrifying persecution that Russian Jews did whatever was possible to put an end to the czarist empire, even getting help from American bankers to fund the birth of the Soviet Union. But the Jewish solution, though having begun intended to save lives, eventually proved to be worse than the original problem. It produced a bigger problem.

A similar phenomenon happened in Germany in the early 1930s. With communism threatening to win elections, even Lutheran ministers instructed their flocks to vote for Adolf Hitler as the only ‘salvation’ against communism. However, the solution eventually proved to be worse than the problem, especially for Jews, who suffered the Holocaust. Despair pushes peoples to deadly ‘solutions.’

Truly, in the Soviet Union the Jews were able to reach high posts in the government and in the military — something mostly impossible in the Orthodox Russia or the Catholic Europe. But the cost was very high.

Jews’ enemies enjoy emphasizing the Jewish participation in the birth of the Soviet Union, but they conveniently cover the slaughters Jews underwent in the Orthodox Russia. Those enemies are able to praise the Inquisition and the Crusades without mentioning the suffering and the slaughters the Jews endured.

Jews’ traditional love for socialism is based in these historical factors and in their fight to back movements to deliver them from intense persecutions of political regimes connected to the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church.

Orthodox Jews have their historical reasons to spit on Christians. But they do not perceive that their issues are only with Catholics and Orthodoxies.

Because of these historical issues, Israel is today the only State in the Middle East where socialism and capitalism are perfectly married.

Those who hate Jews because of socialism should not ignore that they supported this system because of despair and to survive from atrocious persecutions by ‘Christians’ who loved more the Inquisition, the Crusades and pogroms than they loved Jesus Christ.

Those who love Jews should not support kibutzes or the love of many of them for socialism.

Someday the Jews are going to discover that the only salvation from the Inquisition, the Crusades, pogroms, anti-Semitism and Islamic hatred is the greatest Jew in the history — Jesus Christ.

Different from the socialist ‘salvation,’ Jesus’ salvation has no widespread deadly side effects.

Those who know the salvation of this Jew should pray so that Jews around the world may be delivered from their illusions regarding a socialist ‘salvation’ and socialist ‘messiahs.’

Portuguese version of this article: Questões judaicas: um esclarecimento aos cristãos sobre sua percepção dos judeus

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

What every Christian should know about Israel

Brazil honors diplomats that saved Jews from Nazis

Can a Pro-Life Activist Defend The Inquisition?

The U.N. Year of Solidarity With the Palestinian Cause

OLAVO DE CARVALHO AND THE INQUISITION

End of communism not good for Catholicism?

Brazil and its large Catholic population are prisoners of socialism, but the Vatican has been worried (for about 1,000 years!) about the Orthodox Church

By Julio Severo

While the world is celebrating the end of communist tyranny in Europe, its end was not all positive for Catholicism, a senior Vatican official indicated on Monday. According to Reuters through WorldNetDaily, the Catholic official thinks the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago brought religious tensions between Rome and Russia back to the surface. These tensions are much older than the Soviet Union.

Cardinal Kurt Koch, the top Roman Catholic official for inter-church relations, said the re-emergence of Catholic churches in Ukraine and Romania is creating major tensions with the Russian Orthodox Church. For decades during communist tyrannies, these churches were largely suppressed.

“The changes in 1989 were not advantageous for ecumenical relations,” Koch told Vatican Radio.

Koch, who spoke a week after the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall, noted that talks on closer ties between Catholic and Orthodox theologians were suspended between 2000 and 2006 because of tensions between the two sides.

Persecution of Christians in the Middle East has brought Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants there together, he said, but behind the Ukraine crisis there is a conflict of interests between the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Russians, who make up two-thirds of the world’s 300 million Orthodox, are wary of the efforts of Pope Francis, who will visit Turkey to meet Patriarch Bartholomew, the Orthodox leader in Istanbul.

Because of his more progressive stances, it is not only Orthodox Christians who are wary about this pope. Conservative Catholics and evangelicals are also worried about his non-conservatism and about how liberals, including homosexual activists, have welcome him.

Problems between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are not new. Since Orthodox Christians left the Catholic Church and the supremacy of the pope about one thousand ago, their relationship has been hard, even in our days.

Yet, both churches were not supposed to have a so bad relationship, because, in important ethical points challenging Christianity today, they have been champions of truth.

The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church have a good stance against abortion, the gay agenda and population control. Of course, they have also theological problems, including the replacement theology, which says that the Catholic Church replaced Israel. Both the Orthodox Church and the Protestant Reformers inherited this theology from Catholicism.

Because of this theology, the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and many traditional Protestant churches do not have a good relationship with Israel.

About communism, the senior Vatican official should know that if it has fallen in Europe (I doubt it, because its milder anti-Christian and pro-Islam forms are advancing fast, at least in Western Europe), this is not true about Latin America. In fact, this is not true in the largest Catholic nation in the world: Brazil.

While the Orthodox Church had to be suppressed in Russia and other places in the communist times, the Brazilian Catholic Church never suffered any suppression from a communist rule. On the contrary, after a military rule saved Brazil from a communist tyranny in the 1960s, prominent Catholic leaders defended communist leaders and attacked their opposition.

The most outspoken critic of the 1964-85 Brazilian military rule was Bishop Helder Camara, a liberation theology advocate. He was called “Red Bishop” because of his Marxist stances.

In 1973, Camara was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by a U.S.-based leftist organization, the American Friends Service Committee.

According to Dr. Constance Cumbey in her book “The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow,” the Brazilian bishop played a prominent role in international New Age events.

Camara was one of the founders of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (NCBB), the most powerful Catholic organization in Brazil.

For decades, NCBB has kept the Catholic population in Brazil under its Marxist spell and it is credited for having helped to found the ruling Workers’ Party, which has kept Brazil enslaved under its pro-Cuba socialism for 13 years.

In Russia, the most Orthodox nation in the world, the relationship between the Orthodox Church and communism was not easy. In his book “Their Blood Cries Out,” Paul Marshall says, “In the 1920s and 1930s approximately two hundred thousand Russian Orthodox priests, monks, and nuns were slaughtered. A further half million were imprisoned or deported to Siberia.”

While in Russia and other nations the Orthodox Church was violently suppressed to serve communist ambitions, in Brazil no such violence and suppression was necessary. NCBB has voluntarily and wholeheartedly worked to make Catholics and Brazil more communist.

So instead saying that the end of communism was not all good in Russia and Eastern Europe, the senior Vatican official should worry that socialism has never had an end in the largest Catholic flock in the world.

Brazil and its Catholic Church are prisoners of the socialist ideology, especially loved and promoted by the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, and the Vatican is not helping them when it focuses its attention on Russia. Instead of trying to bring Orthodox Christians to the Catholic fold, the Vatican should try to take Brazilian Catholics from the socialist fold and its liberation theology.

With information from WorldNetDaily and Reuters.

Portuguese version of this article: Fim do comunismo não foi bom para o catolicismo?

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Learning from Russia’s Return to Its Historical Roots

Kremlin Hosts International Meeting of Pro-Family Leaders and It is Accused by The Moscow Times of Throwing a Global Neo-Con Party

Can a Pro-Life Activist Defend The Inquisition?