By Walt Garlington, 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.
Masterclasses are all the rage right now, so we’ll hop on that bandwagon for a moment and say that if anyone wants a masterclass on why Evangelical Protestants shouldn’t be in charge of United States foreign policy, he will have a difficult time finding a better one than the opening segment of American Family Radio’s Today’s Issues for Monday, 18 Aug. 2025.
We have a lot of respect for AFR’s parent organization, the American Family Association, for its work in promoting Christian culture by combating abortion, pornography, the LGBT cult, and so on. But the political and religious programming on AFR can be a real trainwreck sometimes. So it was on Today’s Issues.
The segment in question featured a discussion of the Ukraine-Russia war in the wake of the meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin, and the commentators, who are supposedly well-informed on current events, couldn’t stop mouthing the dishonest talking points that permeate the mainstream Western press:
1. Putin invaded the Ukraine without provocation and without justification for the sake of acquiring resource-rich lands.
This kind of statement was excusable in the opening days of the war, when passions were running high and reporting was chaotic. But it has now been going for more than three years since the war began. That is plenty of time to do the necessary research into the background of the conflict. The commentators on TI have not done that research. Let’s help them.
Many folks in the West live in a make-believe world where nothing happened in the Ukraine prior to 2022. Pres Putin one day just woke up (so this fanciful thinking goes) and decided to go to war with the Ukraine because he’s an evil dictator who wants to re-establish the Soviet Union.
There is actually a very long history surrounding Western aggression toward Russia on her western marches, and Russia’s efforts to fend it off. More recently was the US-EU sponsored coup in the Ukraine in 2014 that turned her into a puppet state of the West to be used precisely for destabilization operations against Russia. The RAND Corporation’s 2019 document Overextending and Unbalancing Russia specifically mentions weaponizing the Ukraine against Russia. Thousands of people in the eastern provinces of the Ukraine, which culturally are very close to Russia, were killed by the murderous Kiev regime from 2014 to 2022. In February 2022, Russia had finally had enough of Western treachery, and took matters into her own hands to protect herself and her friends within the Ukraine from that Western puppet government.
16 February 2022, Ukrainian artillery shelling of the civilian population of Donbass increased dramatically. A ground attack seemed imminent. 23 February, the Luhansk and Donetsk Republics asked for military assistance from Russia. On 24 February, Vladimir Putin invoked Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which provides for mutual military assistance in the framework of a defensive alliance.
But Western aggression against Russia extends much further back in time. Ben Dixon wrote a series of essays that go into great depth on Western-Russian relations in centuries past (one of them is here). We will simply note a couple of examples in this regard. The first is one of the earliest examples of the post-Orthodox West’s attempts to subjugate Russia, via the Roman Catholics, during the life of the wonderful prince St Alexander Nevsky:
A very troublesome time had begun in Russian history: from the East came the Mongol Horde destroying everything in their path; from the West came the forces of the Teutonic Knights, which blasphemously and with the blessing of the Roman Pope, called itself “Cross-bearers” by wearing the Cross of the Lord. In this terrible hour the Providence of God raised up for the salvation of Russia holy Prince Alexander, a great warrior, man of prayer, ascetic and upholder of the Land of Russia. “Without the command of God there would not have been his prince.”
. . . The Teutonic Knights remained a dangerous enemy. In a lightning-quick campaign in 1241 Saint Alexander recaptured the ancient Russian fortress of Kopore, expelling the knights. But in 1242, the Germans succeeded capturing Pskov. The enemy boasted of “subjecting all the Slavic nation.” Saint Alexander, setting forth in a winter campaign, liberated Pskov, that ancient home of the Holy Trinity, and in spring of the year 1242 fought a decisive battle against the Teutonic Order. On the ice of Lake Chud both armies clashed on April 5, 1242. Raising his hands towards the heavens, Saint Alexander prayed: “Judge me, O God, and judge my strife with a boastful nation and grant help to me, O God, as to Moses of old against Amalek, and to my great-grandfather Yaroslav the Wise against accursed Svyatopolk.”
By his prayer, by the help of God, and by military might the Crusaders were completely destroyed. There was a terrible slaughter, and there was such a crashing of striking spears and swords that it seemed as though the frozen lake were in motion and not solid ice, since it was covered with blood. When they turned to flee, the enemy was pursued and slashed by Alexander’s army “as if they sped through the air, and there was nowhere for the enemy to flee.” Later, they led a multitude of captives behind the holy prince, marching in disgrace.
Contemporaries clearly understood the universal historical significance of the Great Battle of the Ice, and the name of Saint Alexander was celebrated throughout Holy Russia, “through all the lands, from the Egyptian Sea to Mount Ararat, from both sides of the Varangian Sea to Great Rome.”
The western boundaries of the Russian land were safely secured . . . .
The other comes from the time of the Protestant Reformation:
In the course of its centuries-old history, Valaam Monastery, located near the border of Great Novgorod with Sweden, was repeatedly ravaged by the Swedes. The latter were attracted both by a desire for profit and by a desire to plant the Latin faith in the surrounding lands.
Under King Gustav Vasa (1523-1560), the Reformation took place in Sweden. During the reign of his son John III, a military detachment of Lutheran converts, who, according to St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), ” still breathed a fanatical predilection for their newborn faith,” pursued the Orthodox King, crossed the ice from the mainland to the island and attacked the Monastery. February 20, 1578 ” 18 old men and 16 novices were martyred for their steadfastness in the Orthodox Faith.” Their names with the note “beaten by the Germans on Valaam elders and servants” were entered into the Synodikon, which later ended up in Vasiliev Monastery: Hieromonk Titus, Schema-monk Tikhon, Monk Gelasios, Monk Sergius, Monk Barlaam, Monk Savva, Monk Konon, Monk Sylvester, Monk Cyprian, Monk Pimen, Monk John, Monk Samon, Monk Jonah, Monk David, Monk Cornelius, Monk Niphon, Monk Athanasios, Monk Serapion, Monk Barlaam, the novices Athanasios, Anthony, Luke, Leóntios, Thomas, Dionysios, Philip, Ignatius, Basil, Pakhomios, Basil, Theophilos, John, Theodore, and John.
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2. The second dishonest talking point regards the so-called kidnapped Ukrainian children taken by the Russian army.
War propaganda featuring fake atrocities committed against children is a hallmark of modern Western countries. England used it against the Germans in WWI; the US famously used it against Iraq in 1990 – the much-ballyhooed testimony that Saddam Hussein’s goons were taking babies from hospital incubators and murdering them, which was later proven to be a fabrication.
Germany, in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, was a cultured, educated, and industrially prosperous nation. WWI Allied war propaganda portrayed Germans as blood thirsty monsters. Much the same as current Western propaganda portrays Russian soldiers as ‘orcs’ and all Palestinians , even the Christians, as ‘terrorists’
The Western countries are stooping to this strategy once again vis-à-vis Russia. But, again, a little research dispels the lies at once. Mrs. Helen Andrews, who possesses and displays a ruthless precision in her research and writing, put this claim to rest more than a year ago:
One of the most serious allegations of war crimes against Russia is that it kidnapped tens of thousands of Ukrainian children during its invasion and sent them to “re-education” camps in Russia and, in some cases, gave the children to Russian families to adopt. Because the children are allegedly being Russianized with the intention of eradicating their Ukrainian cultural identity, this conduct qualifies as genocide under international law.
. . . But is the charge true? Lvova-Belova says the children were evacuated from the war zone due to concerns for their safety, and that children can be claimed by their Ukrainian parents or guardians in person with the proper documentation. The Kremlin also disputes the number of children removed from Ukrainian territory: Kiev says more than 19,000; Moscow says it has 600 children from Ukraine in state care.
So which side is right? A story in the Wall Street Journal this week paints a picture of a tragic situation brought about not by the wickedness of Russian authorities, but by the inherent difficulties of wartime. According to the WSJ, people who have brought money and influence to bear on this issue, with the goal of rescuing Ukrainian children, have discovered, upon closer examination, that the situation is more complicated than they initially thought.
. . . Many of these children were living in orphanages on Ukrainian territory that was seized by Russian forces, who then evacuated them. Americans trying to understand this issue need to know two things about orphanages in Ukraine. The first is that, unlike in America, children in Ukrainian orphanages often have a living parent. It is common in Ukraine for single mothers or impoverished families to send their children to orphanages hoping one day to reclaim them when their circumstances improve. This makes it difficult for Russian authorities who want to place war orphans in new homes; they don’t know which ones still have parents in Ukraine who might want them back.
The second thing is that child trafficking in Ukraine is a real problem. The U.S. State Department, the European Union, and UNICEF have all named Ukraine as a hotspot for “institution-related trafficking.” Children in orphanages have been sold to American parents by unscrupulous adoption agents or taken away on false pretenses by criminal gangs, who then use the children in any one of their various money-making enterprises. (For a fictional treatment of this issue, based on real stories, see the 2014 novel Orphanage 41 by Canadian investigative journalist Victor Malarek, an expert in human trafficking and author of the non-fiction expose The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade.)
In other words, there are good reasons why Russian authorities will not release a child simply because someone in Ukraine claims to be his rightful guardian. The desire to reunite children with their relatives must be balanced against the need to protect children from bad actors. Those concerned with the welfare of these children should put their effort into meeting the criteria the Russian authorities have set for reunification in order to bring them home as soon as possible—and leave charges of “genocide” out of it.
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The above quotations are courtesy of two mainstream publications; the folks on TI could have easily found them if they wanted to. But they instead relied on the rantings of a virulent Russophobe like Mark Levin.
All of this is a consequence, it seems, of two things. First, a lack of deep historical knowledge, owing to an ambivalence, bordering on disdain, for history amongst many in the States (as noted by Ben Dixon in his essays), including the Evangelical Protestants; they are too captivated by worldly notions of progress and utopia to spend much time looking back at what has gone on before in the olden days. As a result, most conservatives and progressives merely squawk out, parrot-like, the short phrases their influencer-trainers on Fox News, MSNBC, X, etc., teach them.
Second, Evangelical Protestants in the US lack the mind of the true church, the Orthodox Church. They have mixed Christianity with idolatry, creating the false religion of Americanism, and this afflicts them very badly, distorting their view of what they do know of current and historical events. The truth that Protestantism has been connected with esoteric religions from its birth in the 16th century further hinders their spiritual discernment.
Anthony Westgate: “It is a fundamental mistake to think of the Protestant Reformation as a mere rebellion against the corruption of the Roman papacy. The Reformation is an ongoing Kabbalistic revolution that has fragmented Christendom into thousands of pieces—imposing the worst catastrophe upon Western civilization. It led to the destruction of Christian tradition, the birth of Freemasonry, the spread of nominalism, and the creation of the antichrist Zionist state.” – Read more
What we are witnessing with Russia and the West really isn’t anything new. It is simply a continuation of the struggle of the demonic forces of the world against the Holy Orthodox Church. Russia is the main bulwark of Orthodoxy in the world today, so she is the focal point of attacks. But this war has taken various forms over the years, going all the way back to Charlemagne’s attempts to establish a new ‘Christian’ empire in the West with a new creed that would undermine the Orthodox Empire centered at Constantinople/New Rome. Evangelical Protestants, ignorant of most of this, can only prattle about the chosenness of ‘America’ and reply in bewilderment and anger when anyone questions said chosenness.
The West is a wonderful place with a wonderful Orthodox history. From St Vincent of Spain to St-King Stephen of Hungary, from ‘The Dream of the Rood’ in England to the architecture and iconography of the Basilica of San Vitale in Italy, there is a rich treasure of saints and art that is praiseworthy in Western lands. But so long as Western peoples remain sundered from their spiritual roots in Orthodoxy, so long will they be troublemakers in the world.
That includes the well-meaning though greatly deluded folks at the American Family Association. We will be glad to support their pro-family causes, but may God hasten the day when the influence of them and their fellow Evangelical Protestants is no longer a powerful force guiding the foreign policy of the United States in the White House or in the federal legislature.
Please accept my apologies, I’m feeling a bit preaching at the moment.
About ten years ago, I was sitting in a mega-church fellowship hall (original auditorium that sat 3500–new sanctuary was designed to seat 5000) during a week day around noon, enjoying some sort of boxed lunch. The church had a Home School enrichment program run by High Country Home Educators (non-profit) with classes held each day for parents who felt unable to teach algebra, or calculus or whatever. I was considering teaching something as I love to teach, was given a short tour and sat down for lunch with the parents, teachers, and kids in this home school support day of school.
Sitting next to me was a guy I struck up a conversation with. He was a computer engineer in the latest and greatest tech stuff. He began to tell me at that time, there was a hubbub going around the tech industry as to the legal ramifications of, is your face, your image, your right…can somebody steal your image and make it say and do things posing as you. I thought that was interesting until some weeks later, I read an article online about a Holly Wood celebrity whose image was pirated and shown in multiple videos online and for sale. Every porno wants to see naked celebrities, right? She sued the business which made the videos of her doing a lot of porn. In the law suit, she won her case because her breasts were not like those seen in the videos.That was ten years ago. Where does that leave us now with AI?
strong delusion has settled on the earth and many things that look real, are AI generations with the utmost care. Rocket landings, plane crashes, perhaps school shootings–all fabrications to such an extent to fool the American people into predictable behaviors. Very few people can grasp the danger all America is in. Its not like it was ten years ago, something has changed.
“Protestants running the government”? You’re joking, right? Protestants don’t run anything, this is who runs everything:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/yYbdFz3Xex1p?playlistId=favorites
And here is one of many ways in which they will do it:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/rBCCyX1kzdsD
Something in me bristles when I see good intended folk paint in broad brushstrokes. The Kabal is in ALL–all means all–churches [denominations] in America. It is just as prevalent in American Orthodoxy–if not more, because of its structured nature. I mean really, just look at the GOA which by far has the largest footprint in America.As for the OCA…well, “Did St Tihkons ever get paid for toting water for the shot manufacturers? Of course, somebody was jerking their chain, but who? The Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz?. Nobody goes that far out of their way to support a mega monopolized industry unless they are paid, or…….
All I can think is, here we go again, blame the Protestants, the scape goat for the Orthodox. While we spend our time pointing fingers at the Catholics and the Protestants, our ship is sinking like the Titanic. I know some very ardent Protestants who absolutely hate how our state department is run–the same state department that has Elpi and Bart as their agents. They are puppets, each with a gun in his back to perform, and if they do not perform….um, let’s just say they meet an untimely demise, or are exposed of some moral failure, or whatever. Its how the game is played.
To be clear, I find it very hard to find any Orthodox Church I could without reservation send a seeker to [well, one]–but, of course, I only know a few, there are others. We know the money printers were behind the frankenshots, and yet how many Orthodox clergy got behind it. The carnage is hidden, but there. Think something has changed? Not so much, in fact from what I can tell the globalists have further consolidate their foothold in the Church. When will the next plandemic happen? Now, new shots are already in the pipeline. The shots are a covenant action with the devil, and the cabal, and so many are buying into it–encouraged by so many Orthodox priests. I had a good friend [RIP] in an Orthodox church that took the first two shots and bragged about it to the priest, because the priest [also RIP] told the flock its was fine.
Every time I read, “we as Orthodox” (again, very broad brush strokes), I want to puke! Its all sophistry, speaking to the “itching ears” not, the “hearing ears”, because its all inclusive, and this gives a false hope in something not Christ, and the Fathers would have rejected it hands down. We cherry pick the Fathers just like the Protestants cherry pick the Scripture, and, just talking about it means nothing unless we live it. Of course, some do live out the example, but, the ship is sorely compromised as a whole. Too easily it becomes a spiritual Disneyland with no root in reality, because we have form [of godliness]–oh, do we have form–but, deny the power therein. Do we really think simply running the drills is enough if there is no power encounter, no transformation? Only God knows the heart of each person, of course, some are transformed.
As time progresses, this will have to be sorted–and, will be sorted, it always is, and for many it will be too late. Now, things seem quite peaceful in the flock, but, when things get tough, the distinctions will become obvious. But, only those truly immersed in the Scripture and the Fathers through discernment of Holy Spirit will see it. Satan comes as an angel of light, to deceive even the elect. It is not beyond reason that every single English speaking hierarch in America has been compromised leaving priests in a lurch. Is there any honest hierarch that is fully without question in how they came to take their seat? I think the honest ones have all been pushed out. How could any survive the downward pressure of the heavy hand? But, who wants to give up their retirement, their income, their feeling of security? Their place in the scheme? Submission is mandatory, but obedience is not, somewhere a line has to be drawn when the chips are down. Some lay low, some squirm, others slither, but the honest man is upright in all his ways regardless of the cost.
Lord have mercy! Lord have mercy! Lord have mercy on us all!
Except that Protestantism itself is a demonstrably false religion, which has had a number of real world effects beyond the obvious spiritual consequences. The heresy of dispensationalism for example that most Protestants desperately cling to is directly linked to so much war in the Middle East in the present day. By making everyone to be their own infallible Pope, it is no wonder that Protestantism can best be described as a bee hive of heresy.
So what. The reason the Protestants have such a strong foothold in America is because the Orthodox cannot get their act together. As St Arsiny sat in a gulag cell, he was harassed by the other prisoners regarding the communist takeover of Russian blaming God. Arsiny said, “we are to blame, we let this happen, its our fault.” (recalled from memory having read the book). As long as the Orthodox keep pointing their fingers, nothing much of substance gets done. Our spiritual ancestors converted the Roman Empire in less than 300 years. How can a 99% Orthodox nation like Russia fall prey to the communists? There were NO Protestants in Russia spreading heresy. And with the microscopic representation of Orthodoxy in America, how are we not all beholden to something of Protestantism to save all our butts when Revolution 2.0 takes America by storm? How can you blame Protestants when NOBODY Orthodox ever gets into elected offices.Go ahead, keep blaming the Protestants; but, look at Greece–once a great Orthodox nation, but now all totally beholden to the globalists agenda, because the money printers have deliberately loaned them money with no way to pay it off. Its total enslavement, and with that leverage, LGBT was forced on that nation. And, we think America is any better off because we’re in it. No, no, no; far better nations than this one have been brought to their knees by what’s going on, and I see far more Protestants seeing the handwriting on the wall and at least taking their best shot to warn folks of the calamities unfolding. If we have superior mysteries, what’s our problem? If Protestants are in government, so what? its because God called the Orthodox to influence this nation, and we turned a deaf ear, so the Protestants stepped in. Actually, the government you see now, is not real, its all facade, fakery, smoke and mirrors to make you think everything is all right, just go to church, make your monthly confession, and it will be fine. That’s exactly what the Russians thought in 1916.
But I tell you, long before the Bolsheviks took it over, the Russian Orthodox Church was already overthrown spiritually speaking. Without spiritual fervor rigor mortis sets in. The “Basis of Social Concept” codified after the fall of Communism is the ROC’s mia culpa.
And as for the GOA, they were so busy celebrating Greek culture, they forgot about God, forgot what it means to be an indigenous church, forgot about preaching to the lost, that God became the sideshow, and the subverts slipped right in unnoticed until now some GOA bishops employ bouncers to keep their priests in line–I have seen this personally. Elpi is a puppet, he’s the front man, with a gun in his back. Just watch him dance. Its not him, its somebody behind him. See the smiley face, its pasted on because in reality he’s sweating bullets knowing any misstep would be his last step.
So here is my question, its not a trick question: what’s the difference between the Episcopalians and American Greek Orthodox? The Greeks got good food.
Those that don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, and those who do know history repeat it anyway.
“So what. The reason the Protestants have such a strong foothold in America is because the Orthodox cannot get their act together…..”
Is this some kind of a troll post? So because except Russia there haven’t been any great Orthodox colonial powers suddenly that means Orthodoxy is an inferior religion? Just wow. Ok, so this statement just proves the worldliness of Protestantism.
“But I tell you, long before the Bolsheviks took it over, the Russian Orthodox Church was already overthrown spiritually speaking. Without spiritual fervor rigor mortis sets in. The “Basis of Social Concept” codified after the fall of Communism is the ROC’s mia culpa.”
Communism and these other isms all came from the West, not the East. It is indeed true that the people of the East were seduced by it, but Atheism had to come from the West because of the rationalistic, man centered nature of Western Christianity.
“And as for the GOA, they were so busy celebrating Greek culture, they forgot about God, forgot what it means to be an indigenous church, forgot about preaching to the lost, that God became the sideshow,”
God has been a sideshow in the West for 1000 years now, it was the West that left the Body of Christ. You can draw a straight line from the Filioque to the Sparkle Creed.
Spot on truth Illumined. To answer your question, yes it was a troll post. It’s not worth responding to JL.
John, tell me you became O for the wrong reasons, without telling me you became O for the wrong reasons.
Sadly in the West, our Protestant Churches have all become corrupted by satanic forces, and one can’t help but conclude this is a design which as a civilisation we are being forced (by God) to either confront and defeat or succumb and descend into the abyss. So far, the Deceiver and the Slanderer, appears to be winning that earthly battle, in the West. Because most people in the West have become lost in a sea of slander, lies and distractions, courtesy of first having had their spiritual roots severed by deception by primarily the Catholic Church and its Anglican derivative masquerading as a real religion, then by becoming swamped by slanderous media deception that actively hides or completely omits truth and promotes falsehoods in every area of life, in the West, and only in the West.
As someone who has lived his life in the West (New Zealand), it surprises me hardly any of us can see anything of the above is happening, given I know how good hearted are my fellow Westerners. Which of course is part of the deception on the part of the Deceiver.
I just thank my dear God for granting me discernment, that I may see. Notwithstanding my frustration at being forced to witness the final stages of the spiritual destruction of my own civilisation, in my own lifetime. But then I think, the battle is not yet over, it has only just commenced, and once physical discomfort reaches out to everyone in Western civilisation and physically affects every one of us, that’s when we’re going to see the real measure of who we all are, as a peoples. And while I’m frustrated because I know none of this testing would have been necessary had we all simply stuck to the path of the straight and narrow, as a people, as we started out, when we were young, I also know the sickness, corruption and evil that infests our civilisation cannot be tolerated and must be purged.
Wow! An outstanding article on the forces of evil playing out in the Ukraine / Russia war. Mr. Garlington’s has done his history homework with his ability or Gift of Discernment to zero in on the real cause of the war which is the ” …. continuation of the struggle of the demonic forces of the world against the Holy Orthodox Church “. Putin is well aware of the global Zionist threat to exterminate Orthodox Christians both in and out of Russia. His stance against the Zionist Jews and the ill fated Christians that support Zionism have the staunch support from Patriarch Kirill. This is truly the ultimate Clash of our Christian Civilization. We need to take up are positions and stand firm with the Orthodox Church to see the deliverance the Lord will give us if we would just face them.