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'If I Didn't Speak Out, I Wouldn't Be a True Christian'

 

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Moscow Times, Apr. 8: Nina Belyayeva has fled Russia because a "case" (criminal investigation) was being opened against her. Once it is opened, there is virtually no escape. In this article, Nina Belyayeva explained why she opposed the war – and is paying the price.

She is a deputy of the Voronezh regional council from the Communist Party (!) and spoke out against the war in Ukraine at a council session. "I am against the decision that was made by the president and against the what is happening today on the territory of the "sovereign state of Ukraine. I consider what is happening to be a war crime," Belyayeva said.

After her statement, the deputies demanded that Belyayeva be expelled from the council for what they called "speeches directed against the nation." The deputies also removed her from the deputy ethics commission and requested that the prosecutor's office evaluate her actions. She has since left the country. (Imagine that: standing up against war crimes is considered "unethical" in Russia!)

Belyayeva told The Moscow Times why she decided to speak out against the war and whether she regrets her words: "You have to ask yourself: What would Jesus Christ say? Ask yourself: Would you want to be 'liberated' like this? To have people come into your home with this kind of 'deliverance' and 'brotherly love'?"

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The Aftermath of Destruction in Post-Soviet Countries

 

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I've lived 22+ years in Central Europe during the communist era and in Russia during and after the collapse of the USSR, when my wife and I experienced ONE MILLION PERCENT INFLATION in Russia, people literally dying of heart attacks while waiting in long lines to exchange their "old Rubles" for "new Rubles" before the old Rubles expired and became worthless. We've seen people break down the doors of a grocery store when milk was being delivered in order to buy it before it's gone. I keep my ration card for tobacco and vodka as a reminder of that era.

These days, all sorts of people, mostly ignorant, are spouting all sorts of conspiracy theories and self-blaming explanations for the war in Ukraine. After spending much of my past 60+ years studying about, learning the languages, and living at a subsistence level along with the masses in those countries, I think that I have a fairly good understanding of what is taking place there and why: The Loss of Internalized Morality. In a Christian-based society, parents teach their children basic virtues such as "be kind," "tell the truth, don't tell lies," "respect other people's property," etc. Even though parents might not personally believe in Christ, they have absorbed this from our culture. But increasingly, this is fading away.

In the Soviet Union, however, such basic virtues were abandoned and people felt they had to be ruthless, tell lies, and steal simply in order to survive. What we consider to be normal business practices such as honoring one's contractual word, selling at a fair markup, paying taxes, etc. – these were thrown out the window when private business was declared to be criminal activity. The result of criminalizing business was that only criminals engaged in business, killing, stealing, practicing deceit, making enormous profit, and not paying taxes. Even since 1991's collapse Soviet Union when private business was legalized, the criminal mindset continues to dominate business and private ethics.

IN IRPIN, RUSSIAN "ORCS" BURNED THOUSANDS OF BIBLES. This photo of the fire-disfigured Bibles was posted on Facebook. "Irpin [a suburb of Kyiv]... Thousands of Bibles were burned by the horde... What else can you expect from Satanists... Russian false shepherds bless these demons for such deeds... These freaks are devil's servants, not servants of God," the commentary says.

Russian soldiers also executed the director of an Evangelical seminary in Irpin with a bullet to his head. A good friend of ours who has served in Irpin, Ukraine for several years, sent us the sad news of the seminary director's execution. How can you, especially someone who calls himself an Orthodox Christian, murder other Christians in cold blood simply because they don't adhere to your version of Christianity?

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MASSACRE OF CIVILIAN EVACUEES OUTSIDE KYIV

 

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(24Mar.) In the village of Stoyanka-2 outside Kyiv, a half-dozen cars line the road, riddled with holes, their bodywork mangled by bullets and an explosion.

Their windows, bearing handwritten Ukrainian signs saying "Children" are perforated or shattered. The suitcases inside the vehicles appear to have been searched. The bodies have been recovered by volunteers or removed by Russian soldiers or locals.

This is what remains of the quarter of a 20-car civilian evacuation convoy that tried to escape the suburban town of Irpin on the morning of March 6. As the convoy entered Stoyanka-2, Russian forces opened fire, most likely from a nearby building, killing at least four people in the first five cars and wounding several more. The rest managed to back up, turn around and flee.

Oleksandr Syrtsov saw it happen directly in front of him. "I saw with my own eyes how my loved ones were being shot to death… like cannon fodder," he told the Kyiv Independent over the phone from Kyiv. "In 30 seconds, I lost my friend, my cousin, all my things, my documents, my car… all I saved was my life."

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The brutality of Russia's war of agression against Ukraine is beyond description. My stomach churned when I saw this photo, read news articles, and when receiving many letters from friends and former coworkers there. One former coworker wrote that he and his family had to evacuate from Kyiv to Poland just before Russia attacked, but that the above group of his Ukrainian colleagues drove the above 20-car convoy back from Poland to Kyiv in order to take 200 people to Poland. Our Russian friends still in Russia, however, are mostly silent.

Another ministry in Russia that we've worked with sent a rather bland, positive letter today describing their ministry there, but a letter from the same ministry sent from the U.S. was quite descriptive of the refugee situation in Poland, Germany, Moldova, and Romania. A half-dozen other former coworkers have written, sending photos and prayer requests.

Antiochian Metropolitan Joseph posted regarding Ukraine – "As Orthodox Christians, we oppose any type of violence or injustice throughout the world. Rather, we call upon Almighty God to send us His heavenly peace and bring us together to resolve our disputes through fair and open discussions. I join with all the clergy and faithful of this God-protected Archdiocese to pray fervently for the immediate end of hostilities, and for the health and safety of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian people in these difficult times." [Metr. Onufriy heads the Moscow-oriented UOC-MP.]

Also the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America has likewise called for “all parties and all people to refrain from further aggression, withdraw…all weapons and troops from sovereign lands, and instead to pursue de-escalation and restoration of peace through dialogue and mutual respect.” The Antiochian Orthodox Patriatrchate, based in Syria, owes its continued existence to the protection of Russian armed forces there. Thus, it makes only vague, equivocating statements about Ukraine. The following commentaries, however, are all rather clear:

THE CHURCH AND THE "DIABOLICAL FORCE." HOW PATRIARCH KIRILL FORGOT ABOUT THE GOSPEL AND BECAME A PREACHER OF FRATRICIDE by Sergei Chapnin, who formerly worked in the Russian Patriarch's office but became a dissident, was defrocked, and now writes bluntly and plainly about what's really going on there.

ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH: THE INVADERS OF UKRAINE SEEM TO WANT THE HUMILIATION OF THE PROUD UKRAINIAN PEOPLE: This is the latest of several messages by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

BISHOPS OF THE POLISH ORTHODOX CHURCH: WAR IN UKRAINE "WICKED AND INCOMPREHENSIBLE"

METROPOLITAN IOBI (PATRIARCHATE OF GEORGIA): RUSSIANS ARE ONLY CHRISTIANS IN WORDS, NOT IN DEEDS.

METROPOLITAN OF THE GEORGIAN CHURCH: ANY PATRIARCH OR BISHOP WHO SUPPORTS RUSSIA'S ACTIONS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ORTHODOXY.

[VIDEO] INTERVIEW WITH ARCHBISHOP DANIEL OF THE UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH USA (24 FEB 22)

[AUDIO] OCA METROPOLITAN TIKHON AND POLISH ORTHODOX ARCHDEACON JOSEPH MATUSIAK SPEAK ON PROVIDING UKRAINIAN REFUGEE RELIEF.

HERE'S WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON WITH THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN UKRAINE AND RUSSIA - an article from 2018 explaining why the Antiochian Orthodox Church remains silent about Ukraine: being based in Syria: "Russian political and military support is vital to its very survival in the Middle East."

A DECLARATION ON THE "RUSSIAN WORLD" (RUSSKII MIR) TEACHING. This "Russkii mir" ideology claims that wherever there are Russian-speaking people, that part of the world is Russian territory and should be united with Russia. It also portrays Moscow as the center of true Orthodoxy and the Ecumenical Patriarch as heretical and schismatic.

AN ORTHODOX AWAKENING by George Weigel in First Things: let us hope and pray that this war will bring about an Orthodox awakening!

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Weapons Of Financial Destruction And The New World Disorder

 

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As I wrote earlier here, in the fog of war truth is often the first casualty. People come up with the strangest predictions and wild conspiracy theories. We simply don't know, we can't know, what the outcome of Russia's invasion of Ukraine will be. But the article Weapons Of Financial Destruction And The New World Disorder just might give us some insight into what could likely be the outcome of this conflict.

The author, David C. Hendrickson, is professor emeritus of political science at Colorado College. Here's an excerpt: "The comprehensive sanctions the United States and the West have imposed on Russia take us into an entirely new world. The sanctions are multidimensional, but most important is the “freezing” of Russian foreign exchange reserves, what President Biden called Putin’s $630 billion war fund in his State of the Union. This action means that all previous economic contracts between Russia and the West are invalid."

The article goes on to explain that it happened "against the backdrop of a worldwide crisis in supply chains. That is about to get a lot worse. Among the cascading dominos: 30 percent of the world's wheat exports [i.e., from Russia and Ukraine] are now cut off. Russia's exports of fertilizers – 18 percent of the potash market, 20 percent of ammonia exports – are off market. Energy prices have exploded. A suddenly bipartisan United States has imposed a (mostly symbolic) ban on Russian oil imports." Where will the poorer nations of the world turn for oil, wheat and fertilizer? How many millions of their people might die of starvation? And for the more prosperous nations, what will be the inflationary impact on prices? How will the poor among us in the West survive?

Perhaps more importantly, where will Russia turn to sell its gas, oil, and wheat, now that the West won't buy those commodities? China is quietly siding with and building economic relations with Russia. China needs more wheat, fertilizer, gas, and oil to feed its people and power its economy and produce goods for the rest of the world. So the West's embargos and tariffs on Russian goods will likely drive these two nations closer and create out of the two a much greater economic powerhouse than China is by itself. In addition, if poorer nations are forced to choose between Western sanctions and feeding their populations, might they decide to use another currency such as the Chinese yuan instead of the U.S. dollar as a means of exchange?

Ever since I was lecturing during the late-1990s at Mari State University in Russia, I have said that if the U.S. dollar loses its position as the world's reserve currency, all those trillions of dollars floating around in world markets would come home to roost, causing even greater economic woes: massive inflation in the U.S. and elsewhere. So this conflict in Ukraine might not only backfire on V. Putin, but also on the West.

Where Do Our Highest Loyalties Lie?

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Where Do Our Highest Loyalties Lie?

 

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Our fleshly human nature reacts against the turmoil of war and the injustice of human suffering that results from it. We are strongly tempted to react viscerally, to take one side or the other of this current mili(dola)tary and ideological conflict – that's just human nature. But how should we respond rather than react? How to be proactive instead of reactive?

This requires forethought and spiritual preparation: our minds and our hearts must be filled with the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4). The Living Word of God should "pierce even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12), enabling us to see our own motives. We must let the Holy Spirit transform us by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). All this describes the way we Christians who are all "called to be saints" (Romans 1:7 and 1 Corinthians 1:2) ought to respond.

We need to spend much time in prayer, confessing our own sins and our human nature distorted by sin: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" Only then will we be able to respond in love and think fairly, not having our minds and hearts distorted by our old, fleshly, and sin-stained human nature.

Disability Impacts All of Us

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THE RELIGION OF ANTICHRIST

 

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This video, with the subtitle "A reflection on the deceptive nature of the religion that will be established by the antichrist," is by Father Spyridon Bailey, and if you click on "Father Spyridon" at this YouTube page, you'll see several more of his videos. Also, here's a link to his books on Amazon. As he mentions, the antichrist will first appear to be god-like and many will fall for his signs and wonders:

"For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way. Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth, and bring to nothing by the brightness of his coming; even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn't receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Because of this, God sends them a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be judged who didn't believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (2 Thes. 2:7-12).

Many people with "itching ears" will fall for such charlatans: "For the time will come when they will not listen to the sound doctrine, but, having itching ears, will heap up for themselves teachers after their own lusts; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside to fables" (2 Tim. 4:3-4). People will be led astray by some who say all religions are the same, Jesus was just another good moral teacher, we need to coexist, etc. How can we escape being taken in by such deceivers?

At the end of St. Paul's letter to the Hebrews, he writes – "Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man will see the Lord, looking carefully lest there be any man who falls short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby the many be defiled; lest there be any sexually immoral person, or profane person, as Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal" (ch. 12:14-16). The word "sanctification" comes from Latin sanctus and the Greek is hagios, "holy" –

"Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God..." (Rom. 12:1a). We find this theme again in 1 Thes. 4:3 – "For this is the will of God: your sanctification...." These three texts, in Hebrews, Romans, and 1 Thessalonians, have dozens of cross-references that I suggest you click on to consider: Be Holy!

You shall be holy

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You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy.

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← What's all the fuss about sexual liberty vs. purity and faithfulness in marriage? Click on the photo to read the cross-references in these important Scriptures! The article "The Holy Trinity And Same-Sex Marriage" by Dr. Bradley Nassif describes the immense pressure on Christians to conform to this world's value system in which evil is called good, good is called evil, sweet is called bitter, and bitter is called sweet.

Today in western society, the LGBTQ lifestyle is being presented as the norm for society and traditional Christian morality is being rejected... even in our legal system. Dr. Nassif is described as "the leading academic expert on Eastern Orthodox and Evangelical dialogue." I've had the great privilege to meet him personally and his thinking has deeply influenced our ideas for what has become Agape Restoration Society. He writes -

"Anyone watching the news today is aware that we are living in an age where secular forms of diversity and pluralism are valued over and above biblical truth. This applies especially to issues of gender and sexuality. Activists in the so-called LGBTQ movement have successfully challenged traditional Christian understandings of marriage and family in nearly every forum of American public life, including school curricula, the media, and the courts. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Supreme Court recognition of gay marriage."

This article goes on to list some of the Scripture references that support a principled yet compassionate position on these issues. The man-woman relationship when properly realized reflects the mutual support, love, and interdependence of the Holy Trinity, as the article's title indicates.

We can and should accept those in the LGBTQ community as valid human beings loved by God and created in His image without affirming their lifestyle. It is one thing, however, to have homosexual desire but abstain, another to engage in homosexual acts "in the closet," another to "come out of the closet," and yet another to affirm its acceptability and advocate it as the norm for everyone. The article concludes -

"Hatred has no place on this battlefield. On the contrary, Christians should be the first to come to the defense of those who have been hurt, injured or bullied by hateful adversaries. We must continue to speak the truth in love even though it is a countercultural message that calls people to a life of wholeness through the saving gospel of Jesus Christ."

The church in Corinth had problems with sexual misconduct: incest - see 1 Cor. 5:1, and fornication which is ("porneo" in Greek: it has a broader meaning including fornication, adultery, homosexual acts, and beastiality - see chs. 5:11; 6:9-12; and Rom. 1:27. Even if, as ch, 6:12 states, it is legal and socially acceptable, Christians are to "come out from among them and be separate" - ch. 6:14-18. And as St. Paul wrote a bit further on, we are to be a good example for all people to emulate - ch. 9:22 and 10:33.

When church leaders - pastors, priests, or bishops - use "weasel-words" to excuse fornication, adultery, or homosexual acts, I am reminded of Mat. 24:15 - "When, therefore, you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand)" referring to the holy place later being defiled by Antiochus Epiphanes who slaughtered a pig on the altar in the Jewish Temple, defiling that holy place.

And even later, when Constantinople was captured, the enemy armies defiled the altar in Hagia Sophia Cathedral by letting prostitutes have sex on it. Similarly, in the Old Testament we read - "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination" (Lev. 18:22). Even verbally affirming or encouraging, not only committing such behavior is a sin - "But I have this against you, that you tolerate your woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. She teaches and seduces my servants to commit sexual immorality, and to eat things sacrificed to idols" (Rev. 2:20).

Another thoughtful resource on this topic is the book we just recently bought is Christian Faith and Same-Sex Attraction by Fr. Thomas Hopko, which you can get from Amazon. Richard John Neuhaus, former Editor-in-Chief of First Things, wrote about this book - "In a winsomely accesible manner, he draws on the treasures of Orthodoxy to invite all of us to move from disputation to reflection, and from there to the wholeness for which we are created by God."

Fr. Thomas uses theological language that may be hard to follow, but in essence he says that God's "providential permission" was to create mankind with free will, so only in that sense can a person say he/she was "born that way". It is not a part of God's "essential good will" (p. 56). And still another excellent resource featuring Fr. Thomas and several other speakers is the four-podcast series "Transformation: Same Sex Attraction Through The Lens Of Orthodox Christianity" from Ancient Faith Ministries. All Christians are called to holiness and wholeness, not to disputations and strife. All Christians are called to holiness: Strive for it!