YESTERDAY Donald Trump drew fire from numerous quarters – including Joe Biden – for brandishing a Bible outside a church near the White House. Today (Tuesday) he was castigated again – this time for turning up at the John Paul II National Shrine. D C’s Archbishop Wilton Gregory said in a “stinging rebuke”: I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious… Read more
June 2, 2020
Trump’s second religious photo-op blows up in his face
June 2, 2020 By Barry Duke
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June 2, 2020
Hitler and Trump: comparisons being made after Bible stunt
June 2, 2020 By Barry Duke
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IMAGES linking Hitler and Trump standing outside churches are popping up all over social media sites after Donald Trump strode through a park that had just been cleared of peaceful protesters to stand outside a church and brandish an upside-down Bible. He said, over the noise of sirens, that America is a great country, and will be greater than ever before. The church Trump chose for a brief photo opportunity was St John Episcopal Church – and its presiding bishop… Read more
June 1, 2020
Forced baptism of a disabled child: Ohio church settles damages claim
June 1, 2020 By Barry Duke
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BACK in 2018 American Atheists filed a lawsuit against the evangelical Morning Star Friends Church in Chardon, its lead pastor, Matthew Chesnes, inset, above, and an outfit called Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Northeast Ohio after a disabled child, aged 11, was forcibly baptised against the expressed wishes of his non-religious parents. The brain-damaged child, referred to as “V” in the court filing, was taken to a church picnic in August 2016 by the child’s mentor. During the picnic, the mentor and… Read more
May 31, 2020
Crazy ‘ex’-lesbian: COVID-19 a ‘blessing’ if it halts Pride parades
May 31, 2020 By Barry Duke
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MINNEAPOLIS publication City Pages has its hands full right now reporting on the aftermath of the murder by a police officer of George Floyd, but it found space last Friday to report on the ravings of a woman who ditched a female lover for Jesus and married a Reformed Presbyterian pastor called Kent. City Pages writer writer Hannah Jones discovered that “ex-gay” Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, above, who lives in North Carolina, had recently penned a piece for Desiring God – … Read more
May 31, 2020
Trump judge gets a bruising in SCOTUS religious liberty case
May 31, 2020 By Barry Duke
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ON Friday the US Supreme Court rejected a church’s challenge to California’s COVID-19 restrictions by a 5–4 vote. The ruling proved a bruising not only the South Bay United Pentecostal Church, which brought the case against Governor Gavin Newsom, but for Brett Kavanaugh, above, Donald Trump’s controversial appointee to the court. Mark Joseph Stern, writing for Slate, observed that Chief Justice John Roberts had not only indicated that he would not join conservative judges’ escalating efforts to override public health… Read more
May 30, 2020
Judge sides with Brazil’s indigenous tribes, sacks Bolsanaro appointee
May 30, 2020 By Barry Duke
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WHEN the Bolsanaro government in Brazil appointed Ricardo Lopes Dias, above, to head the Uncontacted Indians’ Unit of the Indigenous Affairs Agency earlier this year, Survival International reacted with horror, saying it like putting ‘a fox in charge of the hen house.’ SI, which works to protect indigenous people all over the world, had good cause to be outraged by the appointment, for Dias was himself a pastor and missionary and has close contacts the evangelical New Tribes Mission (NTM),… Read more
May 29, 2020
Handling magic crackers with latex gloves ‘sacrilegious’
May 29, 2020 By Barry Duke
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AN Italian theologian – Msgr Nicola Bux, inset below – is the latest to toss a chunk of baloney into the ongoing COVID-19/Christian woo discourse by coming down hard on priests who handle ‘Jesus’ with latex gloves. One priest – a US chaplain Lt Col Alan Irizarry, who has been dispensing hosts while wearing gloves – was photographed by Winifred Brown and posted on the US Department of Defense website. Bux said in a statement that: The sacred ministers, especially… Read more
May 29, 2020
Double blow for Catholic Church in Germany
May 29, 2020 By Barry Duke
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LAST month gloomy church officials in Germany predicted that COVID-19 church lockdowns would put a massive dent in the RCC’s coffers, saying they believed the pandemic would prompt people to stop paying church taxes. Bishop Georg Bätzing, above, President of the German bishops’ conference, above, warned on April 27 that: It is going to be a painful process. The corona pandemic is forcing us to enter a process in which we must weigh what we as a church can still… Read more
May 28, 2020
Death threat for bishops who spoke out against Dominic Cummings
May 28, 2020 By Barry Duke
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UNLESS you’re British, the name Dominic Cummings will probably mean nothing to you. But vast numbers of Brit know the ‘career psychopath’ and ‘jumped up oik’ as a Machiavellian creature who wheedled his way to become PM Boris Johnson’s de facto chief-of-staff and perhaps the most powerful unelected political figure in the country. Cummings, above – a fanatical Brexiteer – became Big News for breaking the UK government’s lockdown rules, prompting a huge outcry from people who have been sticking… Read more
May 27, 2020
Israel to extradite ultra-Orthodox child sex abuser to Australia
May 27, 2020 By Barry Duke
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A FORMER headmistress of an ultra-Orthodox school – Malka Leifer, above, is to be sent back to Australia to face 74 sexual assault and rape charges. Leifer fled to Israel in 2008 before police could arrest her and has been fighting attempts to extradite her to Australia, claiming that she is mentally unfit to stand trial. Leifer is a former headteacher at the Adass Israel Jewish school in Melbourne. Her attempts to remain in Israel were reportedly supported by rabbi Ya’acov… Read more
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