It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell. With each new day the support of the Red County/State MAGA types for Jews and the nation-state of Israel continues to grow more fanatical and irrational:
Trump vows harsh punishments for antisemites
US Senators threaten ICC with sanctions if members try to arrest Netanyahu
But something is strange about all of this. There is a hyperfocus on Jews and their wellbeing by ‘Christian America,’ yet there has never been a comparable outpouring of concern for the horrible persecution of Christians around the world. Here is a summary for 2023:
- More than 365 million (one in seven) Christians face high levels of persecution for their faith – and persecution is becoming dangerously violent in countries on the World Watch List.
- Attacks on churches and Christian properties sky-rocketed in 2023, as more Christians than ever recorded faced violent attacks.
- Political instability, war and extremism has created a perilous situation for Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Amid lawlessness, jihadist groups like al-Qaeda and Boko Haram have thrived. Weak governments fail to stop them. And militants attack Christian communities and churches with impunity.
- Most Christians murdered for their faith in 2023 were killed in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria accounted for nine out of 10 religiously-motivated murders. Christians were also killed in Congo (DRC), Burkina Faso, Cameroon and the Central African Republic (CAR).
- Many more Christians have also been forced from their homes. Of 34.5 million displaced people across Sub-Saharan Africa, around 16.2 million are Christians.
- More than 14,700 churches or Christian properties such as schools and hospitals were targeted in 2023. It marked a six-fold increase compared with attacks recorded the previous year.
- . . . 4,998 Christians murdered
- Thirteen Christians a day were killed for their faith in 2023, on average. Nigeria remains the deadliest place to follow Jesus . . . .
Nigerian Christians suffered more than any others in 2023. But violence in Nigeria against Christians has been the norm for decades, with little more than a yawn from most conservatives when contrasted with the attention paid to Israel:
Since 2000, 62,000 Christians in Nigeria have been murdered in genocide perpetrated by Islamist jihadist groups including Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and Fulani militias. The International Committee for Nigeria refers to this genocide as the “Silent Slaughter.”
In June 2022, more than 50 parishioners at St. Francis Xavier Church in Owo were massacred. The Nigerian government blamed the massacre on ISWAP, while local eyewitnesses attributed the slaughter to Fulani militias.
Aid to the Church in Need reports that in 2022, four Catholic priests were murdered in Nigeria. 23 priests and one seminarian were kidnapped and held in captivity in 2022.
In April 2023, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) reported that 18,000 Christian churches and 2,200 Christian schools have been deliberately set on fire. 34,000 moderate Muslims were also murdered by Islamist jihadists.
Leah Sharibu, one of 110 school girls who were abducted by ISWAP terrorists in 2018, is still in captivity because she refuses to renounce her Catholic faith.
At Christmas in December 2023, at least 140 Nigerian Christians were massacred in attacks near Jos. Fulani jihadist militias targeted Christian farming communities in 26 villages across Plateau State. Local media reports indicate a death toll of 200. Numerous villagers sought refuge in the bush to escape the assailants. Many are still missing.
However, not only do we have the unseemly picture of US Christians ignoring Christian persecution around the world, but we also have added to this their grotesque support of the brutal Israeli war in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands (many of them innocent women and children) and destroyed homes, churches, and critical infrastructure. Here, for instance, is US Sen. Mitch McConnell justifying the continued supply of US arms for Israel’s war on the Gazans:
McConnell acknowledged that “war is hell” and “innocent noncombatants suffer,” but still, “civilized nations hold themselves to the highest standards and take deliberate care to minimize harm to civilians.”
Israel, he added, goes to “great lengths” to avoid civilian casualties, including accepting “great risk” to its soldiers to avoid endangering innocent civilians.
Is Sen. McConnell, like most US Christians, ignorant of what Jewish leaders have said about Palestinians over the years? Or is he simply doing what comes naturally these days for politicians in nearly every State – lying? Here is a sampling of what Jewish leaders have said, which doesn’t quite square with Sen. McConnell’s statement:
“We shall try to spirit the penniless (Palestinian) population across the border…while denying it any employment in our own country… expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.” —Theodor Herzl, founding father of Zionism, 1895
“I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it” (1938). “Now a transfer of a completely different scope will have to be carried out. In many parts of the country new settlement will not be possible without transferring the Arab fellahin (Palestinian peasant farmers)….….Jewish power [in Palestine], which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out this transfer on a large scale.” —David Ben-Gurion, first Israeli Prime Minister, 1948
Writing in his diary in 1940 Yosef Weitz, a senior Jewish National Fund official who chaired the influential Transfer Committee before and during the Nakba (“Catastrophe”), and became known as the “Architect of Transfer,” (mass expulsion of the Palestinian population), put it thus: “The only solution is a Land of Israel devoid of Arabs. There is no room here for compromise. They must all be moved. Not one village, not one tribe can remain. Only through this transfer of the Arabs living in the Land of Israel will redemption come.”
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the head of the powerful Israeli Shas political party and chief rabbi of Sephadic Israeli Judaism, taught that the Arab people should be exterminated, “May the Holy Name visit retribution on the Arab heads, and cause their seed to be lost, and annihilate them. It is forbidden to have pity on them. We must give them missiles with relish, annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones.” —2001 Passover sermon. Cf. Haaretz, April 12, 2001. 700,000 Israelis attended Ovadia’s funeral. In its obituary, the New York Times eulogized him and omitted all reference to his calls for exterminating Arabs.
“The Gaza Strip should be flattened, and for all of them (Palestinians) there is but one sentence, and that is death…Gaza has to be wiped off the map, in order to send a message to all our enemies and those who seek us harm…. In Gaza, we have to be clear, there are no innocent [civilians]. There are no “uninvolved” people.” —Yitzhak Kroizer, Member of the Israeli parliament (“Knesset”), Nov. 5. 2023.
“The north of the Gaza strip—more beautiful than ever. Blowing up and flattening everything, simply a delight for the eyes.” —Amichai Eliyahu, Israeli Minister of Heritage, November 1, 2023.
“Spend your energy on one thing; wiping Gaza off the face of the earth. Let the Gazan monsters fly to the southern fence and flee into Egyptian territory. Or have them die. And have them die horribly. Gaza must be wiped out. ..We require a revengeful and cruel IDF (Israeli military). Anything less than that is immoral. Simply immoral.” —Galit Distel-Atbaryan, Member of the Knesset, November 1, 2023.
Equally grotesque is the ideology underlying and motivating these actions and statements:
“Non-Jews are uncompassionate by nature and attacks on them curb their evil inclination.” — Torat Ha-Melekh (sometimes spelled Torat Hamelech, 2009). Torat Ha-Melekh is an Israeli rabbinic book based on the Talmud which has been widely distributed to Israeli military personnel.
Torat Ha-Melekh teaches that it is a religious duty to kill non-Jewish children on the enemy side during warfare, “if there is a good chance they will grow up to be like their evil parents.” Other reasons the Israeli authors furnish for the permission to kill non-Jewish children include if they “block the rescue of Jews…Little children are often situated in this way…it is permitted to kill them because their very presence facilitates the killing (of Jews)…(p. 215). “It is also permitted to kill the children of the leader (of the enemy) in order to put pressure on him…” (p. 215).
“This law is taught: in the case of Israel, this soul of the kelipah is derived from kelipat nogah, which contains good…The souls of the gentiles however, emanate from the other, unclean kelipot which contain no good whatever.” —Shneur Zalman of Lyady, “the Alter Rebbe.” Likkutei Amarim, (chapter 1). This sacred text is more commonly known by its first Hebrew word “Tanya.” Zalman is the founder of Chabad Lubavitch. Tanya is its revered text.
“According to this radical Hasidic teaching, divinity dwells in the inner core of every Judaic human being. Those who are non-Judaic have no humanity, no inner core in which the divine can take up residence. Those beings who are not Judaic are sub-human: empty kelipot (corporeal ‘shells’) which constitute broken vessels.
“In this theology non-Jews are broken shells who adopt the appearance of a human form which conceals their demonic essence. Those who are not Jews are the personification of purely evil materiality. Kabbalistic theology posits a cosmic dichotomy wherein the gentile represents biologically-determined, irredeemable evil. . . .”—Michael Hoffman
“The differences between Jews and gentiles are not religious, historical, cultural or political. They are, rather, racial, genetic and scientifically unalterable. The one group is at its very root and by natural constitution ‘totally evil’ while the other is ‘totally good.’ Jewish successes in the world are completely contingent upon the failure of all other peoples. Only when the gentiles face total catastrophe do the Jews experience good fortune.” —Rabbi Saadya Grama, Romemut Yisrael Ufarashat Hagalut (“Jewish Superiority and the Question of Exile,” 2003). Grama is an alumnus of Beth Medrash Govoha, a renowned yeshiva in Lakewood, New Jersey.
There is something infinitely more holy and unique about Jewish life than non-Jewish life.” —Talmudic-Kabbalist Yitzhak Ginsburg, Jewish Week (N.Y.), Aug. 26, 1996
“The dissimilarity between the Jewish soul, in all its independence, inner desires, longings, character and standing vis-à-vis the soul of all the gentiles–on all of their levels–is greater and deeper than the difference between the soul of a man and the soul of an animal, for the difference in the latter case is one of quantity, while the difference in the first case is one of essential quality.” — Abraham Isaac Kook, Chief Rabbi of Palestine, 1921-1935, the “Father of Talmudic Zionism.” [Source: David Dishon,“The Beauty of Yefet in the Tents of Shem-Gentiles and Jews in the Thought of Rav Kook,” in Havruta: A Journal of Jewish Conversation; Shalom Hartman Institute. 1 (2): 80–89.]
“Wherever there is liability for capital punishment, with regard to bloodshed, if a gentile murders another gentile, or a gentile murders a Jew, he is liable. If a Jew murders a gentile, he is exempt.” —Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 57a
That same Talmud that directs so much of Jewish/Israeli thought and action also has some outright blasphemous things to say about the Lord Jesus Christ (supposedly the Savior of many MAGA conservatives) and His Most-Pure Mother:
Conservative “evangelicals” often refer to America under Joe Biden as an insane asylum. Perhaps they should look to their own psycho ward first.
There they will discover taxpayer subsidies supported by the vast majority of Republican law makers for the mass murder of babies and their mothers in Palestine, and a Talmud newly rehabilitated for the next generation of Christians—volumes which teach that the Son of God is burning in hell forever, “boiled in excrement,” followed by a Talmudic successor text (Nizzahon Vetus), which identifies Jesus’s mother Mary as being synonymous with excrement, and imparts the belief that Jesus was born in excrement.
What is one to make of all this? Only what we have said in the past: Most Red State MAGA Christians are in a woeful state of spiritual delusion, and because of that they are helping the spirit of Antichrist to spread across the world and grow quite strong. Their exaltation of the Jewish people is not unlike Napoleon’s, described by St. Seraphim Rose in Lecture 6 of his Orthodox Survival Course (‘French Revolution’):
And a third aspect is his attitude towards the Jews. The age of revolution was preceded immediately by much agitation in favour of the Jews, especially on the part of very enlightened Jewish philosophers like Moses Mendelssohn and the liberal radical Jews who wanted to abolish the separate ghettos and so forth. In fact the Revolution gave a great deal of so-called “freedom” to the Jews, in every place the Revolution is usually accompanied by emancipation of the Jews. That, we’ll go back to that later on, that aspect.
The most interesting thing about Napoleon and the Jews is that after he had proclaimed himself Emperor, he called from all over the world a meeting of the Sanhedrin, which was the Jewish high court which condemned Christ to death and had not existed since the time of the fall of Jerusalem after the death of Christ. He called back this organization into existence for one purpose: so that the Jewish people would proclaim him to be emperor. . . .
. . . The very thought that he could be proclaimed a god after conquering the world, that he would be conqueror of the world, one world ruler, that he is the Roman Emperor, and that the Jews proclaim him as the emperor, that is, almost messiah, shows that he was very definitely, more than anyone before him in modern times, a forerunner of Antichrist.
If in the 19th century Napoleon was the primary servant of Antichrist in the world, that mantle has now fallen upon the Zionist United States in the 20th and 21st. Whether dropping nukes on Japanese Roman Catholics in WWII, decimating the Christian populations of Iraq from 2003 onward, or undermining the canonical Orthodox Church in the Ukraine today – US foreign policies usually prove deadly to Christians. At the same time, the US is constantly trying to forge ever stronger ties with the Jewish people, who, per the above, are taught to see Christians and other non-Jews as less than human. No amount of sanctimonious blathering from Tony Perkins or Tom Cotton will save the States from the catastrophe that awaits them if they don’t repent and unite themselves to the Orthodox Church.
Difficult times are ahead. Great trials await us. Christians will suffer great persecutions. Meanwhile, it’s obvious that people don’t understand that we’re on the verge of the end times, that the seal of the Antichrist is becoming a reality. As if nothing’s happening. That’s why Holy Scripture says that even the chosen will be deceived.
The Zionists want to rule the earth. To achieve their ends they use black magic and satanism. They regard satan-worship as a means to gain the strength they need to carry out their plans. They want to rule the earth using satanic power. God is not something they take into account…–St. Paisios of Mt. Athos (+1994)
And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her (Revelation 18:1-8).
–Walt Garlington is an Orthodox Christian living in Dixieland. His writings have appeared on several web sites, and he maintains a site of his own, Confiteri: A Southern Perspective.
As Orthodox Christians, it is important to realize that obsession with anti-Semitism, to the exclusion of concern about Christian persecution, is also present in certain quarters of the Orthodox Church. We have published on this before. (See here for a discussion of anti-Semitism in the Orthodox Church as part of the ecumenical movement.) The quote below is from an interview with Archbishop Elpidophoros of the Greek Archdiocese of America, in which he continues to focus on his concerns over growing “anti-Semitism”, while completely ignoring Christian persecution as well as Israel’s slaughter in Gaza. In this excerpt (full interview here) you can also read him directly linking anti-Semitism to opposition to homosexuality:
Look, I listen carefully to all the people who ask for my advice. However, I am neither a psychologist nor a psychiatrist. Therefore, to go out in public and stigmatize anyone I do not hide from you that I consider it fascist. And partisan attitudes are based on the guilt of our fellow citizens for some reason. We have seen this happen historically, e.g. with the Nazis. This is an extremely dangerous mentality, which manifests itself in various aspects. Look what’s happening with the rising trend of anti-Semitism. Therefore, is it possible to give the impression that the Church blesses or conceals or tolerates with its silence such attitudes? This is a terminal disease, a carcinoma that will spread to other parts of the body. Today it may be Jews, tomorrow homosexuals, the day after tomorrow dark, blond and at some point fascism will knock on our door and we will feel the cold metal cutting our necks. In particular, the degree of anti-Semitism of a society shows how healthy it is. These are ideologies that have bled Europe and the world and they can have nothing to do with Christian theology, no matter how much some try to clothe their extreme ideological fantasies with a Christian cloak.
—OR Staff Note
I hope you’ll do a full stand-alone article dissecting Elpidophoros’ latest interview (referenced above). He is a true artiste when it comes to doublespeak, insults, and guilt-by-association fallacies, almost like he was trained by the best in the business.
Fascism already came a-knockin’; it wasn’t “cold metal cutting our necks” but cold metal syringes piercing skin, which he enthusiastically approved.
Strike while the iron is hot, my friends at OR!!
Met. Amvrosios Asks Elpidophoros To Resign: You Are A Violator Of Sacred Canons!
https://www.helleniscope.com/2024/05/15/metropolitan-amvrosios-asks-elpidophoros-to-resign-as-a-violator-of-sacred-canons/
THE GLOBAL DEATH CULT OF ZIONISM
“Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty”
Projection is a psychological phenomenon where feelings directed towards the self are displaced towards other people.
Is projection a form of gaslighting?
Projection: A Gaslighter’s Signature Technique
“Whatever the gaslighter/narcissist is or whatever he is doing, he will assign those characteristics or behaviors to you. It’s done almost to comedic effect – if it wasn’t so potentially damaging to your career.”
“It’s as if the words in their rabbinical writings were spraying vitriol on the faces of all non-Jews throughout history.”
Could there be a connection between antigentilism and psychological projection?
Accusation in a mirror (AiM) (also called mirror politics, mirror propaganda, mirror image propaganda, or a mirror argument) is a technique where one falsely attributes to one’s adversaries the intentions that one has for oneself and/or the actions that one is in the process of enacting. It has been cited, along with dehumanization, as one of the indirect or cloaked forms of incitement to genocide, which has contributed to the commission of genocide, for example in the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. By invoking collective self-defense, accusation in a mirror is used to justify genocide, just as self-defense is a defense for individual homicide. Accusation in a mirror – Wikipedia
See also
Big lie
DARVO (deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender)
How Fascism Works
Psychological projection
The Authoritarian Personality
Victim blaming
Whataboutism
Sen. Mitch McConnell says civilized nations hold themselves to high standards, in excerpt above:
McConnell acknowledged that “war is hell” and “innocent noncombatants suffer,” but still, “civilized nations hold themselves to the highest standards and take deliberate care to minimize harm to civilians.”
Not so much, says Ret. Gen. Mark Milley:
‘We Also Slaughtered Innocent People in Massive Numbers’: Gen. Milley Gives Bizarre Defense of Israel
https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64443
Walt,
Thank you for pointing out the unbalanced views of many evangelical Protestant Christians and some other Christians regarding support for Israel and Jews while these same Christians ignore the history and the present situation of Christians in Africa and the Middle East. We always need to see the whole picture and act accordingly!
And then there are the examples of the examples of the Patriarchs of Moscow, and Antioch (Damascus), who are Orthodox leaders, who claim to be Christians. Pals with war criminals, and who are silent about war crimes at home. Photos available. Shall we sweep our own side of the street first? Sorry to ruin a red herring narrative, but compelled by the truth. Rationalization is the Devil’s Playground. Known to some as Satan.
In Syria, the death and destruction was wrought by the the US which still occupies the oil fields. In Ukraine, through Minsk I and II, the Russians tried mightily to head off the very conflict we now watch in horror. You have been asked more than once – what war crimes are you talking about? On the other hand, nothing you wrote has any connection to this article by Walt. This, on your part, is pure redirection. The conservatives in the US, many boomer cons like you, completely ignore Christian persecution while hyperventilating over every Ivy League Jewish kid whose feelings are smudged. For an Orthodox Christian, you sound a lot like a garden variety troll.
In Syria the war crimes were committed against the Syrian people by Assad and his pal Putin. If this is news to you keep digging. Perhaps the truth will grab you. Satan is the Great Deceiver, ask Jesus! Photos available of Kirill, Putin, Assad and John X. Will you publish them? They’re smiling. Some times the truth is painful, but it’s still the truth. Introspection is beneficial. Highly recommemded. And redirection is blaming the worlds problems on others. Jesus said “Speck in my eye and log in yours?” It’s in the Gospel, both in English and Russian. I have both translations.
Keep digging on war crimes in Ukraine too. If you can’t find them ask any civilized country. Even Serbia recognizes the territorial integrity of Ukraine and all countries. Putin and Krill are deeply disappointed. Some enjoy living in alternative reality of their own creation, because the truth is just too painful. Doesn’t work for me. What did Jesus say about the Truth. Suggest more research.
Here’s what doesn’t work, Mike. Your comments don’t work and these are the last two we will publish unless you straighten up your style.
1) If you assert involvement in or support of war crimes, then you are the one who needs to back up what you say. Telling us to do research is not going to fly. You want us to take you seriously, then tell us what you are on about. We are not new to either the Middle East or Ukraine.
2) Your comments have nothing to do with Walt’s article. They are completely out-of-place. The Assad Regime did not and does not persecute Christians. The Christian persecution in Ukraine is being carried out by the Zelensky Govt. If you want to discuss Syria, then provide facts and do so at this article:
https://orthodoxreflections.com/8-reasons-why-global-orthodox-hierarchs-back-the-uoc-without-condemning-russia/
Which includes a section on Syria.
If you want to discuss the Ukrainian War, we have many articles on that topic, but we can recommend this one as it covers the proximate causes of the war:
https://orthodoxreflections.com/is-russia-really-fighting-a-holy-war-in-ukraine/
So, last and fair warning. Either post substantive comments that contribute to a discussion or expect that they will not be published. Especially as you cast aspersions on Orthodox hierarchs without posting any actual proof of your accusations.
Gamma confirmed
Mike:
Your knowledge and research skills obviously are superior. Please enlighten us by writing and submitting a detailed article on these topics, with all sources cited. Don’t forget to provide links to the photos, also. Ready, set, go: We await your submission!
Personally I’m willing to say that muslims are persecuting Christians in Nigeria, Zelensky is persecuting Christians in Ukraine, and Putin is persecuting Christians in Ukraine (his military is actively killing them, albeit in open combat rather than by shooting up church services like muzzies or by trying to kill an entire Orthodox Church like Zelensky).
All brother wars and bloody murders are sin, full stop.