#christian web pages

[anushaarticles]

I heard about different ways mentioned in the Bible in my Church. This has inspired me to get this article to all of you. When i revised the message i heard i understood there are ways which we need to avoid and to follow…let's read more in detail.

[gratisdiamanten]

NO SHORTCUTS TO HEAVEN:

Or, Lance Armstrong buys himself a gun.

No Shortcuts to Heaven, Billy Graham, Decision Magazine (2005). // Lance Armstrong is treated for testicular cancer, Linda Armstrong Kelly (1996). // Psalm 138:6 ESV. // Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky (1979). // Lance Armstrong crashes out of Stage 5 of the Amgen Tour of California, Associated Press (2010). // Recycling Religion: Lance Armstrong’s Postmodern Spirituality of Suffering and Survivorship, William J. F. Keenan (2014). // Lance Armstrong is treated for testicular cancer, Linda Armstrong Kelley (1996). // Lance Armstrong during the 91st edition of the Tour de France, Tim de Waele (2004). // Recycling Religion: Lance Armstrong’s Postmodern Spirituality of Suffering and Survivorship, William J. F. Keenan (2014). // For Stacy (photo and excerpt), Lance Armstrong, Recovox News (2010). // It's Not About the Bike, Lance Armstrong (1999). // Lance Armstrong in a youth BMX race ca. 1982, Linda Armstrong Kelly, Sports Illustrated (2013). // Lance Armstrong: It Wasn’t Legal but I Wouldn’t Change a Thing, Reuters (2019). // Lance Armstrong getting a medical check up before the Tour de France, Franck Fife (2003). // Effects of erythropoietin on cycling performance of well trained cyclists: a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial, Jules A. A. C. Heuberger et al., The Lancet (2017). // Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866). // Luke 9:25 ESV. // Lance Armstrong at a victory procession for the Tour de France, Peter de Jong (2005). // Lance Armstrong climbing Alpe d'Huez, John Allen (2000). // It's Not About the Bike, Lance Armstrong (1999).

[heartfullofleeches]

A reverse human haram with a supernatural reader sounds so cute and dope

(I don't remember names so I apologize in advance)

But like the angel being a human business owner like an antique shop

Baron maybe being a tattoo artist? I feel like it'll fit him

And the reaper could be... Um.. maybe a hacker or something like that? Something that will let him stay inside all day and minimize human interaction.

And there's reader, some kind of a supernatural being, that maybe like going shopping in antiques shops, and getting tattooes... And going on the dark web? 💀

Or maybe the 3 humans already know each other and trying to track down this being for some reason?

Anyway, i just dig the idea:) could be really cute and I also miss those 3 😭

(I Stan librarian Maddox who just draws most of the time and panics when people talk to them)

"Can't one of us just ask them out for coffee? Even in the bizarre scenario they are what you claim, why would this be the best way to go about this?"

"Because your ugly ass would scare them away. Now shut the hell up and Mad give me the next step."

Maddox flips through the pages of the book positioned in their lap, producing a switchblade from their pocket. "All that's left now is a drop of blood from those who wish to form a contract. That's us, I suppose."

Baron, safety be damned, grabs the knife blade first - cupping the warm blood in his hand as he passes it to Alasdair. The shop owner was hesitant, but for the prize at hand he was desperate. He sticks his thumb and gives the knife back to Maddox who does the same.

Baron snorts, blood seeping from his closed fist onto his jeans. "What? Scared of a little nick?"

Alasdair rolls his eyes meanwhile Maddox ignores Baron's remarks as they get into position. What led them all to this situation? Two of them though on equal levels would never be seen together, and the alternative pairs worked as well as water and glue. The binding agent for their group was none other than a visitor shared between their place of business. Those keen eyes that marveled at the antique owner's precious collection of angels. That sweet smile peaking over the librarian's shoulder as they scribbled away behind their desk. The bubbly laughter that gave an ego boost to the tattoo owner and his horrid taste in fashion.

A person capable of bringing these opposites together had to be supernatural in nature, and in a way - you were. Baron discovered this while stalking you to the back alley behind their stores and witnessing you vanish from thin air. Doing more research than he ever had for school projects, Baron reasoned that you had to be a demon. He enlisted the help of Maddox to find a way to get your attention with Alasdair picked up along the way. He was skeptical as any Christian man would be, but since they were using his store for the summoning he had no say.

The trio bring their hands to the center of the circle on the floor and pour the contents onto the piece of your shirt Maddox managed to snip off. They squeeze the tip of their finger as apology and remain the last to pull away as the puddle of bloods turns black and begins to boil. The ground cracks and a skeletal hand reaches through, bones staining in the onyx sludge that creeps up its body creating layers of muscle and flesh. Crawling from the hole, the creature's tongues flicker against the hostile air as smog disburses from its throat. It cracks its jaw as it stands to full height, towering over them all - plucking a bone from its needlepoint fangs.

"That's the last time I try to finish something while being summoned."

Baron speaks up first. "Are... you naked?*

"If I'm not pretending to be a mortal there's no need to put on clothing... Don't I know you all?"

"that's so fucking hot... Ow, bitch!"

Alasdair clears his throat to play off the assault he committed on his peer. "I apologize for our barbaric approach. I'm sure this is as shocking for you as it is for us, but we have gathered here due to a shared interest in winning your heart."

You look around the room. "So.. you all want to date me?"

"Precisely."

"Hell yeah."

"Is that a bad thing?..." The librarian slides their charred notebook at your feet. You pick up the book. What's left of the pages shows you in human form.

"I suppose not. I am bound by contract to whatever your commands are, and if you wish to sell your souls for something like that then so be it. If I'm allowed an opinion, this one has already made a good first impression."

You point your claws beneath Maddox's chin who nearly faints from the contact. Baron's jaw drops to the floor while Alasdair tries, and fails to hold a straight face.

"Come on, Mad you're the last one I thought I'd have to worry about. I thought we were cool!" Baron grabs your arm, eyes bulging out of his sockets at the feel of your harden muscles. "Holy shit.... You said you'd do anything, right?"

"Baron I swear to God if you ask them to crush you with their thighs I'll choke you to death right now."

"I wasn't, chill-.... Their arms would do just fine."

[sev-arts]

What the webcomic is and why YOU should be reading...

(i.e. a promotional post by the Author @sev-wildfang/@sev-arts herself)

The story of how vampires used Christianity ahem, The Church to enslave humans and steal their Souls, and one sexy Devil's quest to reclaim them... repossess them in a way... if only there was a catchy two-word phrase for that

Starring two trans women who put on the horns and skin of Demons to fight the power - homophobes get pummeled, transphobes get zapped, fascists are blown to smithereens, and at least one alpha male grifter gets his mojo permanently turned off.

Your new blorbos: Reah, orphanage escapee and former nun on a quest for revenge, and Tabitha, ex-cop drag queen on the path of atonement

Will they? Won't they? Can they settle their differences and work as a team? Will the past they thought they had left behind come back to haunt them?

Tasteful amounts of graphic nudity and bloody violence, language that does not sugarcoat social stigmas around gender diversity, and frequent use of hateful language by characters who would say those kinds of things IRL too - this is a comic for readers 18+ ONLY *

Rendered in gorgeous black and white ink and select splashes of color, entirely hand-lettered, with labyrinthine detailing that make every single page worth dwelling on, with hidden extras to find - the Devil's in the Details!

Alluring nonstandard panel layouts inspired by stained glass windows, photo collages, fever dreams, art nouveau advertisements, underground comix, etc.

An astonishing archive of over 750 pages as of now (JUN 2024)

Seriously, look at them:

Where can YOU read this comic right now?

On its ComicFury site

On its tumblr mirror @souls-foreclosed

On its own website

Technically you could buy the physical books off of me, but you wouldn't be reading a web-comic then

Paging @readwebcomicsgdi for some extra eyes on this!

* You'd be surprised how difficult this comic is to host online with any sort of reach these days. Tapas (mobile app) and WebToon don't want it. And that's not even getting into the fact a lot of platforms treat ANY kind of trans content as sexual and unwanted in the first place.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

On Thursday, Justice Neil Gorsuch released a 26-page opinion venting outrage about a legal dispute that does not exist, involving websites that do not exist. Yet this case, built on imaginary grounds, will have very real consequences for LGBTQ consumers, and for anti-discrimination laws more broadly. All of the Court’s Republican appointees joined Gorsuch’s opinion in 303 Creative v. Elenis.

That said, the fake dispute that Gorsuch imagines in his 303 Creative opinion involves a reasonably narrow legal question.

In the past, Christian right advocates have sought sweeping exemptions from state and federal civil rights laws, rooted in their expansive notion of “religious liberty.” Often, these lawsuits claimed that the Constitution’s safeguards for people of faith allow anyone who objects to LGBTQ people on religious grounds to defy any law prohibiting anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

303 Creative involves a much narrower dispute. The case centers on Lorie Smith, a website designer who wishes to expand her business into designing wedding websites — something she has never done before. She says she’s reluctant to do so, however, because she fears that if she designs such a website for an opposite-sex couple, Colorado’s anti-discrimination law will compel her to also design wedding websites for same-sex couples. And Smith objects to same-sex marriages.

As Gorsuch summarizes her claim, Smith “worries that, if she [starts designing wedding websites,] Colorado will force her to express views with which she disagrees.”

This is not a religious liberty claim, it is a free speech claim, rooted in well-established law, which says that the First Amendment forbids the government from compelling people to say something that they would rather not say. In ruling in Smith’s favor, the Court does not say that any religious conservative can defy any anti-discrimination law. It simply holds that someone like Smith, who publishes words for a living, may refuse to say something they don’t want to say.

The full implications of Gorsuch’s opinion are not entirely clear. In the past, religious conservatives have argued that artists and artisans of all kinds — including bakers, photographers, and floral arrangement designers — should also be allowed to discriminate under the First Amendment, because all artistic work necessarily entails some kind of expression. Gorsuch punts on this question, writing that “hypotheticals about photographers, stationers, and others, asking if they too provide expressive services covered by the First Amendment,” are not present in the 303 Creative case.

And it is worth emphasizing that the particular kind of work that Smith does, writing words on a publicly available website, fits more snugly within the First Amendment than a similar claim brought by a wedding cake designer or a florist.

Before this case was argued, I wrote that if Lorie Smith had been approached by a same-sex couple and refused to design a wedding website for them, and if she had then been sued for refusing to do so, then she would have a very strong First Amendment defense against such a suit. As the Supreme Court said in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (2006), “freedom of speech prohibits the government from telling people what they must say.” And that includes the right of a web designer to refuse to write words on a website that they do not wish to write.

But none of these events have actually happened. And, for that reason, the Supreme Court should have dismissed the case.

THIS CASE SHOULD HAVE NEVER MADE IT THIS FAR

The frustrating thing about this case is that it involves an entirely fabricated legal dispute. Again, Lorie Smith has never actually made a wedding website for a paying customer. Nor has Colorado ever attempted to enforce its civil rights law against Ms. Smith. Indeed, in its brief to the Supreme Court, Colorado expressed doubt that its anti-discrimination law would even apply to Smith.

Yet Gorsuch’s majority opinion repeatedly paints Smith as a hapless victim, oppressed by wicked state officials who insist that she must proclaim a dogma that she denies. As he writes in the very first paragraph of his opinion, “Colorado does not just seek to ensure the sale of goods or services on equal terms. It seeks to use its law to compel an individual to create speech she does not believe.”

This claim is simply untrue. Colorado has not brought any enforcement action against Smith, or taken any other step to compel her to say anything at all — or to design any website that she does not want to design. Nor has anyone ever sued Smith for allegedly violating Colorado’s anti-discrimination law.

Indeed, in one particularly amusing turn, Smith alleged during an early stage of this litigation that she was approached by a man about doing some design work for his wedding to another man. Yet, after the New Republic’s Melissa Gira Grant contacted this man, she learned that he never reached out to Smith — and that he was married to a woman.

These facts matter because federal courts, including the Supreme Court, do not have jurisdiction to decide hypothetical cases. As a unanimous Supreme Court held in Texas v. United States (1998), “a claim is not ripe for adjudication if it rests upon ‘contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all.’” So the Court should have told Smith to go away and come back when she had a real dispute with the state of Colorado.

303 Creative, moreover, is the second time Gorsuch has taken such liberties with the truth in order to rule in favor of a religious conservative. Almost exactly one year ago, Gorsuch handed down the Court’s decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022), a case about a public school football coach who, after games, would walk to the center of the 50-yard line and ostentatiously kneel down and pray before students and spectators — often while surrounded by players, community members, and even members of the press.

Indeed, in her dissent in Bremerton, Justice Sonia Sotomayor included a photo of Coach Kennedy holding such a prayer session, as a throng of uniformed football players and other individuals kneel with him, and as people holding video cameras look on.

And yet, Gorsuch’s opinion in Bremerton claimed that Kennedy merely wanted to offer a “short, private, personal prayer,” and then Gorsuch ruled in favor of Kennedy based on this fabricated version of Kennedy’s actual conduct.

Needless to say, this is aberrant behavior by a Supreme Court Justice — and really by six Supreme Court justices, since all of the Court’s Republican appointees joined Gorsuch’s decisions in 303 Creative and Kennedy.

[mindofsombre]

2001 DALTON HIGH SCHOOL MASSACRE

Date occurred : September 15th, 2001

Casualities : 20 dead (including the perpetrators) 26 injured (24 by gunfire)

—————————————————————

This tragedy occurred September 15th 2001 in Robloxia Springs, Mason County, Colorado, when 17 year old Samuel Steven's and his accomplice, 18 year old Nicholas Colton Sieged their school With guns and other deadly weapons, Their main motive is unknown but it is suspected they wanted notoriety.

(photo taken of Steven's entering dalton high.)

The early mornings of the massacre, the two boys drove to a local diner and enjoyed a breakfast together. Afterwards they drove their blue transporter van to Dalton high and prepared for what was to come. An arsenal of weapons hidden in their cars, wearing black trenchcoats, they observed students as they walked in. Many students stated they seen them wear trenchcoats to the school before and didn't suspect anything. Steven's took his TEC-9 in the cafeteria, and snapped a photo before walking back to the blue van. At 10:12am, Colton and Steven's headed back towards the cafeteria doors and began opening fire on students. Stevens would fire 32 rounds and Colton would fire 9.

At 10:15am, They Would walk back over to the side doors of the school near the hallways and drop their coats. Colton reloaded his rifile and uttered the words "You worthless whore" to Shayna Greene while firing 3 bullets in her head, Stevens would fire 10 rounds into locker doors, afterwards injuring Lewis Chan. Colton joins Steven and walks up to Chan as he lay prone on the ground, he would call him a “f&gg0t” before shooting him 5 times, killing him.

At 10:20am the gunmen enter the library, 35 students and 2 teachers hide among the bookshelves and tables, this is where the worst of their massacre would begin.

(bodies of students among the tables.)

Daniel Turpin, Colton calls him a “computer nerd” before shooting him in the back and shoulder. Afterwards, the pair approach Alexander Engle, asking him if he believes in god. Engle replies with, “Yes, I’m Christian”. Stevens tells him, “Good, you’re about to see him just about… now” And fatally shooting him. Colton approaches his art teacher, Ken Tanner, Colton utters the phrases, "Sorry, Mr Tanner." and shooting him in the chest and neck. 7 people and injured 4 in the library, sparing the 26 others. The gunmen leave the library at 10:41am, they would roam the halls in search of students, One survivor reported seeing Stevens fire gunfire into a classroom as she hid from the perpetrators. Mason County sheriff’s deputies have arrived at the scene and have surrounded the building, The Pair fired at swat and police.

gunmen enter the cafeteria, CCTV cameras capture the infamous image of the gunmen at the base of the stairwell. Stevens was seen at one point picking up a Bloxy Cola off of a table and drinking from it whilst shooting at inanimate objects. The duo walk back up the main hallway back towards the library. Colton tells him to use his camera to take a picture of him before he shoots himself, Stevens would snap a picture of Colton as he held his handgun to his head. Moments later, Colton would fatally shoot himself in the temple with his Walther P99. Stevens Follows not long after and fatally shoot himself in the eye socket with his Beretta 92fs. Nick Colton fired 67 rounds and Sam Stevens fired 158 rounds, 225 in total, striking 44 people in total. Sam Stevens killed 7 students and injured 20, Colton killed 10 students and 1 teacher, injuring 4 others. The massacre ended at 11:4am

(more information on this web page ↑)

[faggyv4mpire]

★ Well, are you ready, Ray? ★

First of all! brelliefreak→ faggyv4mpire Now we can continue... Heyo, my name is Jason but you can call me any nickname you want! My zodiac sign is Leo My MBTI personality is ENFP I'm 16 years old, therefore I'm a minor I'm from Mexico 🇲🇽 (so I also know spanish :D) I'm Bisexual and a Transmasc🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ My pronouns are He/Him :3 Future pediatrician! My favorite colors are green, yellow and purple💚💛💜 I love drawing and playing acoustic guitar I have my own demolition lover! (Im taken)💚<33 I am a Christian (don't worry, I don't have fanaticism, I'm not homophobic nor do I want to impose my religion on you! that's annoying) Now...

★ How about you, Frank? ★

DNI

-If you don't respect the way of being of others, are hurtful or give your opinion more than 2 times when it has already been made clear to you that it is not required

-If you want to kidnap me, steal my kidneys or any of my organs to sell them on the deep web

-If you are a proshipper any kind! especially incest!

-If your profile is full of boob pics (NSFW)

-If you don't breathe (except for you Faye)

★ How about you, Mikey? ★

Favorite albums! (artists, bands)

Extras!

-I use bad words! so if you feel uncomfortable with that, this blog is not for you! - This is are some of my tags :3 -If I do or say something that you don't like and harms society, TELL ME! sometimes I need a slap -My Spotify -My Pronouns page -My Instagram -My Pinterest -My Spacehey!

Sideblogs!

@my-coquette-romance Its my coquette shitpost girlblog @emo-spongebob this one is self explanatory @thelesbianspace just lesbian stuff @mcratscult Its my cult, join it! @tumamacomeplastilina a blog we're I teach spanish (I still working on this one)

Favorite song!

★ Well, I think I'm alright ★

💚CHEERARD PICS UNDER THE CUT💚

1, 2, 3, 4!!!

★ WE CAME TO FUCK!!! ★

[scotianostra]

On August 25th in the year 1330 Scotland lost one of it’s greatest warriors when The Good Sir James Douglas fell at Teba in what is modern day Spain.

James was called “The Black Douglas” by the English for his dark deeds in their eyes, becoming the Bogeyman of a Northern English lullaby “Hush ye, hush ye, little pet ye. Hush ye, hush ye, do not fret ye. The Black Douglas shall not get ye.”

There are also unsubstantiated theories that this was because of his colouring and complexion, this is tenuous, Douglas only appears in English record as “The Black”, in Scots’ chronicles he is almost always referred to as “The Guid” or “The Good”. Later Douglas Lords took the moniker of their revered forebear in the same way that they attached Bruce’s Heart to their Coat of Arms, to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies and exhibit the prowess of their race.

Robert the Bruce had requested that Douglas, latterly his most esteemed companion in arms, should carry his heart to the Holy Land, as atonement for the murder of John Comyn, and the fact that his excommunication meant he was unable to go on a Crusade himself.

Douglas and his knights had been invited to join the forces of Alfonso XI of Castile, Edward of England’s cousin by Queen Isabella, mother of King Edward III of England to fight a Crusade against the Moors in 1330 at the Castle of the Stars at Teba, he was killed as he led a cavalry charge against the enemy while outnumbered and cut off from the main Christian force. He is said to have through Bruce’s heart forward as he was about to be slain, although another source states it was still tied around his neck,

Remarkably the casket survived to this day and was returned to Scotland, to be interred at Melrose Abbey. Douglas’ bones were boiled and returned to Scotland. His remains were laid to rest at St Bride’s Church, Douglas, which houses the monumental tombs of Black Douglas earls.

You may see artist impressions of the Guid Sir James with the Douglas Shield and it’s red heart, this is an inaccurate depiction it wasn’t until 1333 the ‘bloody heart’ was incorporated in the arms of Sir James’ son, William, Lord of Douglas. It subsequently appeared, sometimes with a royal crown, in every branch of the Douglas family.

The village of Teba, in the Guadalhorce-Guadalteba region, still remembers The Good Sir James by holding the two day Jornadas Escocesas (Scottish Festival) every year, also called Scottish Days or Douglas Days Teba. There are numerous people and associations that collaborate in the organization of these days. Some of them, such as the Saint Andrew's Society of Gibraltar, the Order of Knights Templar of Saint Michael or The Strathleven Artizans, expressly travel from Scotland to participate in the event.

The Village of Teba, is twinned with Melrose in the Scottish Borders.

More on all this on their web page here https://www.douglasdaysteba.com/

[themainspoon]

If you are a WoD fan and you aren’t aware of how fucking wild White Wolf’s strategy for marketing Demon: the Fallen was, that changes right fucking now, get ready.

So, the year is 2002, American Culture is still moving past the Satanic Panic, and your job is to market a Table Top Role Playing Game where you play as literal demons who were aligned with the Biblical figure of Lucifer. The book has a big ass pentagram on its cover, and is filled with information on fictional demons and their demonic powers.

How do you market this?

Well, isn’t it obvious?

You satirise Chick Tracks by making a fake one about how the game you’re supposed to be promoting is satanic. I’ve linked it below, it’s only 23 pages long;

But you may be thinking: “Ok, that’s a funny concept, but why is this such a big deal to you?” Well, buckle the fuck up kiddo’s, because I want you to look at that last panel again:

Do you notice anything about it that could prompt further inquiry? What about that URL?

You see, the chick track was only one part of this little marketing stunt.

And so, I ask again, how do you market Demon: the Fallen?

You create an entire fake Evangelical church website called the Eternal Grace Evangelical Church, and write a fake sermon in which you claim that the brand that hired you is producing games that turn children into drug addicts and sexual predators, also claiming that Vampire: the Masquerade was involved in real world murders including the fucking Columbine School Shooting.

Below is a link to the site from the Internet Archives Wayback machine, the main bulk of the interesting stuff is in the sermons section.

Quick note, they used EVERY part of the evangelical bullshit playbook to make this site look legit, they went hard on this. So, the site is satire, but it still feels like it would be a good idea to mention that they satirise everything about Evangelicals, including their homophobic, transphobic, anti-catholic, and anti-pagan beliefs.

https://web.archive.org/web/20031205191032/http://www.father-ramos.com:80/

If you don’t want to read it yourself, here are some actual quotes from this fake Evangelical site that was, and I can’t stress this enough, MADE BY WHITE WOLF TO PROMOTE DEMON: THE FALLEN: (above disclaimer applies here too)

“Eternal Grace Congregation Church is a community of Christians who seek to love, worship and praise Him and to communicate the Word of the Gospel to the world around us while exposing the lifestyles and and recruiting prctices of those deviants who would make this world a place of horrors. Among these are homosexuals, gamblers, drug addicts and role-players.”

“You may find it useful to tell role-players about the Dallas youths who were burned to death in the steam tunnels of Southern Methodist University (of course it was the Methodists) while exploring them for treasure. Tell them about the syphilis-related insanity of Jimmy Cox, a Tennessee teenager who used role-playing games to build around him a coven of homosexuals. Tell them about Michelle Sikes, the Montana role-player who had a sex-change operation. The more perversion you can ascribe to involvement with role-playing the better. You may even wish to fabricate some of your own, to better illustrate the point to your specific at-risk individual.”

“Listening to accounts of the role-players’ games is either the height of tedium (it must be said, pardon my air of judgment) or evinces strong feelings of pity, […] Invitations to participate, if accepted, place the individual in a precarious position himself, and will probably expose him to the scourges of drugs, fornication, homosexuality and Catholicism/paganism in many cases.”

“point out to them that the activity borders on delusion (“You are not an elf, Tommy!”) and heresy (“If God intended for you to act like a demon, he would have made you a demon, Jenny”).”

“In addition, rumors (which is why I relegate this to a side note instead of including it in the main body of my discourse) link the activities of the Columbine high-school “trenchcoat mafia” with Vampires Masquerade.”

“As good Christians, it is obviously our duty to prevent our youth from learning the corrupt ways these books and games teach. Sex, suicide, drug abuse, homosexuality, “golden showers” and many other behaviors proscribed by the Lord and the Good Book come as a result of players taking their games too far. In particular, the moral execration contained with the Demon book takes these aberrations to new levels by openly encouraging players to act in the interests of Satan (or Lucifer, as he is depicted herein).”

“Additionally, role-playing games teach that violence is an acceptable and even admirable way of solving problems. Significant portions of their rules are devoted to combat and weaponry. Demon, for example, also contains systems by which the satanic characters can attack or use magic upon their enemies, with dark arts spawned from Hell itself. These are not unlike the gay community’s reactionary “straight bashing” in response to the more physical efforts of their loving fellows (but loving in the Lord’s intended way) to bring them back into the fold.”

“This Week: Pastor "Father" Ramos discusses the Catholic Church and the 68 Million deaths its evil has caused throughout the world! You won't read this in the history books! Father Ramos also discusses why he has chosen to reclaim the Holy tile"Father" from Catholocism.”

White Wolf was frequently quite edgy, and often wasn’t great at dealing with social issues (you could argue this is still true of the modern World of Darkness in some cases). But honestly I think this is a fun stunt. It mocks evangelicals for all their insane bigoted beliefs, and for basically giving all the stuff they call satanic free advertising. No matter what though this is an unhinged marketing stunt, and it is so wild that they actually did this.

[fashionbooksmilano]

Nick Knight

Introduction by Charlotte Cotton

Designed by Paul Hetherington

Harper Collins, New York 2009, 264 pages, 27x32,5cm, ISBN 978-0-06-171 4573

euro 240,00

email if you want to buy booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

Nick Knight is among the world's most influential and visionary image makers. As a fashion photographer, he has consistently challenged conventional notions of beauty and is renowned for his groundbreaking creative collaborations with designers including Alexander McQueen, Comme des Garçons, and John Galliano. Advertising campaigns for clients such as Christian Dior, Yohji Yamamoto, Shiseido, Jil Sander, Swarovski, and Yves Saint Laurent, as well as award-winning editorials for W, Vogue, Dazed & Confused, Visionaire, and i-D magazines, among others, have kept Knight at the vanguard of progressive image making for the past three decades.

This incredible volume—with all images selected by Knight—is a midcareer retrospective of his work, from 1990 to the present day. With an introduction by Charlotte Cotton, curator of photography at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the book includes work for major advertising campaigns for Dior, Louis Vuitton, and Levi Strauss, as well as numerous prestigious fashion publications. It features collaborative work with Björk, Michael Clark, Peter Saville, Gareth Pugh, Massive Attack, and Hussein Chalayan, photographs of the natural world, exquisite editorial images for Vogue, and models who defy fashion's stereotypes. It also includes examples of Knight's ground-breaking performance and film work on his Web site, SHOWstudio.com, the first to seriously consider how contemporary fashion photography would be shaped and expanded by the Internet—and is the contemporary reference point for many of the most innovative ideas and experiences of fashion today.

With more than 300 striking images reflecting Knight's extraordinary vision and fearless experimentation, this volume is a landmark in both the genres of photography and fashion.

23/01/24

[millenniumfae]

Dragon Age Demons vs Real-Life 'Inner Demons'

Way back in the summer of 2015, my symptoms got so unbearable I was bedridden. 20 years old and experiencing psychosis, quasi-hallucinations, and actual, unending panic for the first time. It marked the start of a condition that has never stopped since.

My aunt (and other relatives) helped me develop proper mindfulness skills based off of our homeland's folk Buddhism - the 'second arrow'. The meaningless of forgiveness. Devaluing control. And something that struck me as a new Dragon Age fan … 'Possession'.

Well, when translated to english, you'll find texts using the word 'insight' rather than 'possession'. But that's the word my mom translated from off the top of her head, and it immediately resonated with me.

"Imagine your panic as an inner creature. Something that is also you, but is acting independently. Treat your panic with kindness and mentorship, not antagonism. The more you struggle in the spider's web, the worse things get. But if you nourish what's hurting in you, let them tantrum, then come back in to nurture."

Up until the 2010s, the most acclaimed mental health books you could buy written in the english language would most certainly be christianity-influenced. Maybe not overtly, (but you'd be surprised how many have a chapter about "insert-book-topic-here and Christ") but there's little hints like how the reader must have left home at 18 to avoid mooching off their parents, or how to 'turn guilt into something productive' (???), the use of the word 'gamble' as a bad word, etc. But these books tend to include a chapter that would be some weird bullshit like "The Dark Souls Of Respawning?? What Daoism Says About Immortality" and take a brief moment to talk about the radical, never-before-heard-of methods from across the pacific that Will Turn Your World Upside Down.

Behavior therapists (of the 1950s) were aware insights about the origins of the problem usually weren't helpful. Exposure to the thing the patient feared was often curative. -When Panic Attacks by David D. Burns MD, Chapter 18, "Taking a page from the Tibetan Book of the Dead"

Now, it's no secret that the Dragon Age serial is very. Um. Christian. Catholic, specifically. Faith is written to be an unequivocally redeeming trait. Attempts at inventing fake elf/qunari/Tevinter 'religions' still have them be belief-based, colonialist, and conversion-heavy, while also at the same time implying that the 'Maker' of Chantry faith is the single actual true god.

So it's no surprise that the demons and spirits of DA are very seven-deadly-sins. Party banter and side-quests do point out the euro/christian-centricity of this demon categorization (Merrill, Solas), but that doesn't mean shit if, in overall story and gameplay proper, Pride is the most powerful demon while Faith is virtue at all.

So here I am, lying in bed and only capable of just riding the waves of panic day after torturous day. You bet I'm gonna try to geek-erize my symptoms. If people do it with Jesus, then I can do it with Dragon Age.

Enter Vigilance the Spirit. I was an at-risk young Rivani mage, so their Magic Welfare Government helped me join their クサビ-依り代 program and matched me with a spirit to induce possession. Can't boil two skulls in one pot, so to speak. I could have chosen to do their hemispherectomy program (I am made Tranquil but carry around a piece of the Fade like a pacemaker that keeps me perfectly lucid, only turning off when I sleep), but that comes with its own risks.

But it doesn't take much for a spirit of Vigilance to do a 180 and become Panic. They're still Vigilance, and I am still me, but the taste in the mouth is different. Our life will need to adapt.

I will not kick myself for 'failing' my friend. Vigilance has turned to Panic, yes. But they have always been one. Now, so are me and Panic. Such is the nature of spirits.

If I am kind to my spirit, then I am kind to myself. It's what we both deserve.

[mask131]

I was trying to look around to see if I could find some more information about Père Noël in its pre-Americanized incarnation online, but unfortunately most websites share the misinformation that "Père Noël" only existed from the 50s onward and was a French invention... No. [Note: I know books exist folks, but I precisely wanted to do a web research first]

There is only one website that does not share this idea and does identify Père Noël as a typical French figure that was then overtaken by the American Santa Claus, and the most fascinating thing is that it points out (despite previous sources I shared claiming "Père Noël" was first recorded in literature in the mid-19th century, by people describing their youth around the turn of the 18th-19th century) that Père Noël seems to have existed since the Middle-Ages, with texts referring to "Père Noël" or to "Monseigneur Noël". But it does recognize that the Père Noël traditions really boomed in the 19th century and were associated with the bourgeoisie of the time...

The website in question however is mostly focused on the various local, regional incarnations of the gift-giver - because as with many things in France, this tradition is rather a set of various regional and localized specificities that were ultimately synthetized into one entity.

It reminds that in the Lorraine and Alsace region, the Germanic cultures and German influences make it so that Saint Nicholas and Christkindl are still the main gift-givers. In Lorraine it is Saint Nicolas who is most honored (he is after all the saint patron of Lorraine). Appearing in his bishop outfit that makes him look a lot like Santa Claus (thick white beard, large clothes of red and white), every 6th of December he brings gifts and treats to nice children - while naughty children are confronted by his dreaded companion, Père Fouettard dressed in blacks, who beats up with a stick bad children. Saint Nicolas is also still strongly celebrated in the North of France (aka, what is above the Parisian region, because despite what some foreigners believe, Paris is not part of the North).

While in Alsace it is the Christkindl that still goes strongly, with Hans Trapp as its own Père Fouettard. The website briefly reminds that Christkindl is an avatar/incarnation of the Child-Christ, or Baby Jesus, that ended up being fused with the 23rd of December Saint, Sainte Lucie (Saint Lucia), resulting in this unique Christmas figure appearing as a woman dressed in white with a crown made of fir branches topped by four candles. It also reminds how Christkindl stays a symbol of Protestant end-of-the-year celebrations, as they pushed the Christkindl figure to oppose and replaced the Catholic celebrations of Saint Nicolas. Finally, there is an Alsace-specific legend that claims Hans Trapp actually originated as an Alsacian lord that tyrannized his people - Hans von Trotha, the 15th century lord of Wissembourg.

[Given the Alsace region has a lot of website pages about its traditions I'll place here in brackets informations from other websites:

The Christkindl, also written Christkindel or Chriskindla, is a Christian figure that is supposed to be an embodiment of L'Enfant Jésus, Child Jésus (the name comes from Christ-Kindel ; Christus-Kindlein, Christus als Kind), but definitively was influenced by Saint Lucia, who is very big in Scandinavia. In fact, Saint Lucia and the Christkindl look a lot like each other - female entities dressed in white with a crown of candles... Though the Christkindl can appear both as an adult woman and as a little girl, and also tends to have white veils. People tend to also find in Christkindl remnants of the Germanic goddess Berchta. No need to tell you that the Christkindl is big in all parts of the world influenced by German culture - Germany, Austria, northern Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Czech Republic, and even some parts of Brazil, the ones where there was strong German imigration.

The Christkindl appeared in the 16th century with the Protestant Reform. Up until this point the day of Saint Nicolas was a very big thing in Alsace - saint-patron of school students, he offered good children mandarines and "manala" (a brioche in shape of a child). But the Protestants did not agree with this (Protestants were known to strongly dislike saints in general), and so they replaced the saint with the Christic figure of Christkindl, while keeping Père Fouettard/Hans Trapp (whose job was to threaten with stern lectures naughty children... or take them in a bag to abandon them in the deep dark woods). The change occured over the 16th century, from 1530-1536 (last mentions of Saint Nicolas in Alsace) to 1570 (first mention of Christkindl, when the Klausemärik was replaced by Christkindelmärk). In fact, Christkindl still has some Saint Nicolas traits - she also goes around with a donkey, named Peckeresel, which carries two bags, one for the treats (mandarines and bredalas), one for the whips. People left hay or carrots for the donkey to eat by the front door. Pastor Johannes Flinner made a strong public attack against saint Nicolas in Strasbourg during the "cultural transition", by pointing out that distributing gifts to all should be the prerogative of the Christ and no one else.

During the 20th century the Christkindl lost popularity in Alsace (jee, I wonder why France would like to bury Germanic traditions in the century of World War II) - but it returned in the traditions from the 1990s onward.

Fascinatingly, despite being supposedly a Christ-figure of an angel, the Christkindl, or White Lady, is also frequently called in alsace, a "fée", a fairy, la fée de Noël, the Christmas fairy. It doesn't help that she sometimes carry around a wand with a star at the tip, that is strikingly reminding of the stereotypical fairy-wand. Another irony of fate - despite the Christkindl being brought over to replace Saint Nicolas, the two currently still coexist in Alsace thanks to people not wanting to abandon the good old bishop. A third fun fact: originally the Christkindl could be played as much by women as by men, due to being a truly androgynous entity. From the 16th century onward, the Saint Nicolas celebrations were replaced in Alsace by parades of teenagers of both sexes dressed in white, going from door to door to give gifts and sing Christmas songs. However you can't have teenage boys and girls go around late at night without getting some problems... And those "Saint Nicolas hook-ups" were a real problem in Alsace, you have records from the 17th and 18th centuries pointing out how authorities have to try to refrain all the Christkindl from... well you know.]

The next entity presented is the famous Pays Basque character of Olentzero, whose appearance is that of a coal-man. Well a bizarre coal man - he has a bag filled with coal in one hand, a sickle in the other, a large beard on his face and a béret on his head. According to the Basque-version of the Nativity lore, he lived at the top of the mountains but saw in the sky the announcement of the birth of Kixmi (Basque name for Jésus), and he descended from his mountains to announce the good news. While he is the gift-giver of Pays Basque, leaving gifts for children in the night between the 24th and 25th of December, entering in the house by the chimney ; he is also a bogeyman figure, as he was a scary-looking man who was said to take away in a bag naughty children. As with everything Basque, Olentzero is actually a pre-Christian figure, as the very name of the character is related to the "pagan" winter solstice celebrations of the old Basque religion.

[Again, time to bring some more information from other websites to make sure I give a more complete portrait:

Long story short, because the Basque folklore is very well documented and I can't spend too much time on this, the Olentzero (or Olentzaro, Orentzaro, Omentzaro, Orantzaro...) is at the same time the Basque name for Christmas and the Basque figure of the coal-man that brings gifts during Christmas. He is supposed to be a grotesque character - rude, fat, dirty, gluttonous, his face blackened by soot, with worn-out clothes... He is basically a caricature of mountain-men and forest-men. Sometimes he is even given monstrous traits such as "having as many eyes as there are days in the year, plus one" - which is reminding of a French being of the New Year folklore called L'Homme aux Nez who also has as many noses as there are days in the year...He typically holds branches of gorse in one hand and a sickle in the other.

He comes down from the mountains, enters houses by chimneys, goes into the kitchen once everybody goes to sleep to eat all leftover food, and he warms himself by the fire - either you had to leave a log burning just for him, either he used the flames of the fire to burn his gorse branches. In fact, "olentzero" was also the name of a special log that was left bruning in the fireplace from Christmas to the 1st or 6th of January. This theme of the "coal man" of winter or the burning of branches all answers to a deep motif of bringing back light and heat in the heart of the cold and the dark. Him holding a sickle has made people draw parallel between him and the figure of Saturn/Kronos.

In fact, there is an old tradition, long before the Olentzero was embodied by a disguised man or by a mannequin paraded through the villages, to embody the character simply by the sickle. The sickle hanged by the chimney, as a threat to all disobedient children, to all lying children, and to all children that refused to go to bed. Another symbol of the Olentzero, outside of the sickle and the coal-sack, is a wine-bag or wine-bottle that he carries around, because to add to the grotesque he is also a drunkard, and according to stories it is because he gets often drunk that his wife regularly beats him. (Because yes the Olentzero has a wife, a character named Mari Domingi and who is typically depicted wearing a medieval regional outfit). However it seems that all this grotesqueness is simply due to the Olentzero being a character from the old Basque mythology that got Christianized - think of how the Dagda of Celtic mythology also got more buffoonish/clownesque/grotesque as time passed. We do know that the roots and origins of the character lie in the valley of Bidassoa...)

Today gone is the creepy bogeyman and grotesque glutton ; the Olentzero has evolved into a kinder, nicer, cleaner incarnation that is closer to the Père Noël traditions. For example he now parades through streets during the day, riding a horse (pottok) or by foot, giving children candies and sweets (including fake-coal actually made of sugar) ; and the legend claims he goes down from the mountain to offer coal and wood-logs to the poor families that can't afford fuel for their fire]

And finally, we find back our good old Père Janvier! Here we have most of the same info as previous. Père Janvier was a Bourgogne character, most present in the Morvan and Nivernais regions up until the 1930s. He brings gifts in the night between the 31st of December and the 1st of January by going through the chimney - chimney which must be decorated with holy and mistletoe. Père Janvier (Father January) typically looks like a skinny old man with a long white beard, dressed in a brown monk-like robe, and he is usually bent due to wearing on his back a heavy wicker basket filled with toys. And he too has for companion the Père Fouettard.

Most interestingly, the website mentions "Père Janvier variations" across France, most notably the Savoie character of Père Chalande, and the Normandie character of Barbassioné.

More information from other website. Le Père Chalande (or Papa Chalande, Daddy Chalande) was indeed a figure of the Savoie region, but also of the Dauphiné, and he was also present in Geneva. Martyne Perrot, in her book "Faut-il croire au Père Noël? Idées reçues sur Noël" even lists the area of action of this figure as: Savoie, Suisse romande, Bresse, Forez, Ardèche, Gard, Lozère and Hérault. He is basically identical to Père Noël because "Chalande" is just an old word for "Noël" (Christmas) in the regional language known as arpitan.

There was a traditional song that went as such: Chalande est venu / Son chapeau pointu / Sa barbe de paille / Cassons les anailles (noisettes) / Mangeons du pain blanc / Jusqu’à Nouvel An. / Il monte dans sa chambre / Il trouve une orange / Il la pluche / Il la mange / On l’appelle le petit gourmand. / Il descend les escaliers / Il se casse le bout du nez / Il va chez le cordonnier / Se faire mettre une pièce au nez / Quand il est malade / Il mange de la salade / Quand il est guéri / Il mange des souris/ Toutes pourries !

I can't translate the full song, but it refers to various traditions. For example leaving an orange for Père Chalande ; Père Chalande wearing a "beard of straw and a pointy hat" (leftovers of Saint Nicolas, especially the pointy hat) ; Père Chalande giving "anailles" (walnuts) to children ; and the habit of placing inside the Christmas log (real log of the fire) chestnuts, so that the burning of the Christmas log doubled as the cooking of the wintery treats. Raymond Christinger wrote in 1965, in a set of research about Geneva folklore, an article studying the character of Chalande, if you know how to read French: here.

While doing Chalande research I stumbled upon a Swiss theory brought forward by a journalist named Bernard Léchot - I don't know how accurate this is when it comes to actual evolution of Christmas figures, but here it is. According to him, the Christmas archetype of the "Old Man" actually comes 18th century Germany. In this era of rationalism, the German Protestant landgraves decided to introduce some laicity to their country, and so cut-off all characters close to Christianity from their Christmas celebrations (from Saint Nicholas to Christkindl). As a result, pagan figures returned, including the Old Man in the shape of Weihnachtsmann. Which then spread to other European countries, each land creating its variation: Bonhomme Noël in France, Father Christmas in England, Père Chalande in Savoie.

As for the Barbassioné of Normandie, I found nothing about him. As in every says it is the Normandie name of Père Noël, but he doesn't have any specific thing to his character.

To conclude, I will link you to a page documenting a Père Noël/Christmas beings exposition that collected various visuals of the history of the Christmas gift-givers through time, right here.

And through it you will see the evolution from the "Scandinavian ancestors" (Thor and Odin) and Saint Nicolas (celebrated in Germanic countries and the Alsace region), to the American Santa Claus and the British "Old Father Christmas", passing by the Germanic Knecht Ruprecht, the also Germanic Weihnachtsmann, the Christinkindel (of Germany, Belgium and Alsace), the Jultomte of Sweden, and the Enfant Jésus/Child-Jesus of France and Italy...

Without forgetting the French Bonhomme Noël, the Italian Befana, the regional ancestors of Père Noël (Tante Arie, Père Chalande, or the Breton Ted Nedelec), the Russian Ded Moroz, and Mère Noël (Mother Christmas)... With additional sections about Santa Claus in advertisements, the theme of "outlaw Father Christmas", Père Noël during the World Wars, and more...

[justbrothings]

I recently read an original story on ao3 that i wanted to recommend here.

The story is in German, but i hope at least someone will be able to read it (yes i'm writing this post in english anyway, no i'm not sure why)

Schuldig - Eine Liebe unter Brüdern, by callisto24 (on AO3)

Word Count: 77,139; 1 Chapter

Rating: Explicit

Fandom: Original Work

Pairing: Brother x Brother (Original Characters)

Summary:

Zwei Brüder fühlen sich auf verbotene Weise zueinander hingezogen.

(transl: Two brothers feel a frobidden attraction to each other.)

Warnings (added by me*):

CSA mention (not between the brothers, not described in detail),

Abusive family (both physically and psychologically),

On-page Death of a character (he deserves it, tho)

*i don't want to spoil it too much here, but if you need more info on any of these, feel free to message me!

Just to prevent misunderstandings:

I did not write this story, i just liked it and wanted to talk about it!

This got a bit long, so i'll put the rest under a cut:

My (more or less spoiler-free) summary:

Okay, so when i first saw this story (with it's very short description) i wasn't too excited to read it, but decided to give it a try anyway.

...there is also a big age-gap (12 years) between the two brothers that i was a bit nervous about, but i kept reading anyway and i'm glad i did.

The story follows Olaf, as he grows up, goes to uni and later takes his first steps in the working world, all exactly following the plan his strict parents laid out for him. But as he gets older, he starts to struggle with the obligations his parents put on him, especially when they try to keep him away from Christian, who they think has a bad influence on Olaf. In addition Olaf starts to develope romantic feelings as his brother grows older, which complicates his life even more.

Olaf is the son of rich parents and grows up with a lot of expectations and pressure to become the perfect heir for his father's business.

He is twelve years old when his parents unexpectetdly have another son, Christian. Olaf spends most of his time at boarding school, so he doesn't get to see his brother a lot. Still, he tries his best to be a good brother, to look out for Christian and spend time with him whenever he can. They quickly become very close whenever they are together, only to then be kept apart again for months at a time. This pattern keeps repeating over the next two decades.

The story is about Olaf and Christian's friendship and later love, but also about their relationship with their parents and the web of control they have trapped Olaf in and how he fights to protect his brother and himself.

Spolier: It has a happy-end.

Other things i have to say:

The abuse i mention in the warnings is between the father and his sons, not between the two brothers. None of it is described in detail.

It was hard to read at times, especially the power the father has over Olaf, and how Olaf complies with almost every demand, no matter how much it hurts him. Please be aware that this family is really awful.

The ending is a bit aprubt, but it doesn't drag down the rest of the story much and i still enjoyed it, even though i wish it could have been a bit more fleshed out.

I really liked the way Olaf's feelings, his yearning and longing as well as his guilt and self-hatred are described. (this is exactly my shit.) But also you really understand his struggles and the pressure hes under, his parents' influence over him and how these things keep him trapped.

(if you do read the story, please tell me, i would love to hear your opinion!)

That's all i have for now.

If you read this far, thanks and i love you <3

[bills-bible-basics]

Bill's Bible Basics Used to be Endtime Prophecy Net As some of my longtime friends will know, since about the middle of 2016, my online Christian ministry has been known as Bill's Bible Basics, and can be found at https://www.billkochman.com. However, what some of my newer friends probably do not know, is that prior to July of 2016, the BBB ministry was known as Endtime Prophecy Net. In fact, it was called by the latter name since the year 2000 when I first purchased the domain names endtimeprophecy. net and endtimeprophecy. org. Furthermore, it was during the early part of those sixteen years that I began to create the over 5,000 Bill's Bible Basics graphics which now populate many corners of the Internet, such as on eight of the major social networks. For reasons which I have explained before, in July of 2016, I took both www.endtimeprophecy. net and www.endtimeprophecy. org offline, and I replaced them with https://www.billkochman.com. It was the same content as before, but with a new ministry name, and a new website URL. While I took them offline at that time, I did not fully relinquish ownership of those two domain names until November of 2017 when my registration for them expired. So why am I sharing the previous information with you? Well, for several reasons. First of all, given the nature of the Internet, many of the original versions of my graphics are still floating around on the Internet. These original and older versions have the domain name www.endtimeprophecy. net on them. Since creating all of those original versions years ago, ALL of my graphics have been both enlarged, as well as updated and improved in quality, making them better than the originals. You will know if you are looking at a newer version of one of my graphics, because the domain name on it will be www.billkochman.com, and NOT www.endtimeprophecy. net. One reason why I am telling you this is because I really don't want anyone sharing the older versions of my graphics which have www.endtimeprophecy. net on them. One of the main reasons behind my making this request is the following: After I relinquished endtimeprophecy. net and endtimeprophecy. org back in 2016, some unscrupulous person -- who remains unknown to me -- purchased the endtimeprophecy. net domain name, and for years now they have been using the domain name to advertise a hotel chain. Obviously, it has absolutely nothing to do with our Christian faith. So what they are doing is both dishonest, as well as misleading. If you put www.endtimeprophecy. net in the location field of your web browser, you will be taken to a page which shows a very old -- and broken -- version of the Endtime Prophecy Net website. Of course, none of the links will work, because the site is dead, and the page is bogus. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you will see a pile of links for the aforementioned hotel chain. So as I said, that person is using my old domain name for dishonest and misleading purposes. They are using our faith, and my former website name and website URL as bait. Shame on them! For the record, a few years ago, I made efforts to get them to stop, but they refused to even communicate with me. Furthermore, I was unable to locate any information regarding the ISP they are using. So, it was basically a dead end, and they have continued with their scam. So that is why I am asking everyone to please NOT use or share any of my old graphics which have www.endtimeprophecy. net on them. Because if you do, you will be unintentionally leading people to that bogus website. Please direct all of your online friends to Bill's Bible Basics at https://www.billkochman.com instead. All of my original content -- articles and series, poetry, graphics, KJV Bible Verse Lists, etc. -- can be found there. Regarding the endtimeprophecy. org domain name, if you attempt to go there in your web browser, you will be taken to a page which contains a number of related links, and which will inform you that endtimeprophecy. org is for sale, and that it can be purchased via networksolutions. com. Let me also mention that over the years, certain dishonest individuals -- particularly on Facebook -- have stolen literally thousands of my images, altered them, and chopped them up. In particular, they intentionally remove my www.billkochman.com website URL from the graphics, and they place their own URL there instead, or something else. Again, this is shameful, and a poor Christian example. In conclusion, I hope you all continue to enjoy and are blessed and edified by the material which I freely share online via the Bill's Bible Basics website, the Bill's Bible Basics Blog, and on the various social networks. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I appreciate it. By the way, if you want to see a very early version of the Endtime Prophecy Net website, check out this link. You can tell how old it is by reading the descriptions for the EPN and EPO versions of the website near the bottom of the page. A 56K modem? Really? :) https://www.billkochman.com/Original-EPN.html https://www.billkochman.com/Blog/index.php/bills-bible-basics-used-to-be-endtime-prophecy-net/?feed_id=200924&Bill%27s%20Bible%20Basics%20Used%20to%20be%20Endtime%20Prophecy%20Net

[mental-mona]

The problems with JVP, Part 1

By Elizabeth Wolf on Facebook

Since I’m already pissing people off, I guess it’s a good time to post about Jewish Voice for Peace. I’ll put links in the comments.

Part 1

Like a very different organization, Moms for Liberty, the name is deceptive. You do not have to be a mom to start a chapter of Moms for Liberty, and you don’t have to be Jewish to start a chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Moms for Liberty is about a very specific interpretation of liberty that many would disagree with, and Jewish Voice for Peace promotes a very specific type of peace that you could easily mistake for its opposite.

This is why you see JVFP having Hanukkah events that are not actually during Hanukkah, lighting the candles incorrectly, fundraising on Shabbat (when many Jews do not handle money), and saying things that are theologically inaccurate about Judaism. People who know very little about Judaism can start a chapter, join a chapter, or run social media for a chapter, and then say they speak for Jews. This is how you end up with a Lebanese gentile being admin for their Facebook page. This is how you end up with an openly antisemitic Muslim making social media posts under their account, starting with the phrase, “As a Jew.” This is how you end up with temple denial and misrepresentations of the Torah floating around, apparently given the stamp of approval by a group of Jews.

“But JVFP has a rabbinic oversight board,” you might say. “Surely they are making sure the individual chapters are not out of line.” Well, I have no idea what that board is doing, but it’s not providing oversight to individual chapters. For example, it is easy to find people from JVFP saying that Israel is a white European colonial project, and for this reason, the Mizrahi community and Ethiopian Jews have explicitly spoken against them. The JVFP web site, however, clearly acknowledges that over half of the Israeli population is not white. JVFP social media accounts tolerate the verbal abuse of Jews and even targets members of mainstream Judaism with harassment, so that you’ll have a Black Jew being called a bloodthirsty white colonizer by non-Jews, ostensibly in the name of both Judaism and peace. I’ve seen Black Jews call this out and tag rabbis from the oversight board on this kind of activity and get no reply.

I’ll add to this that almost all the rabbis on this board are Reconstructionist rabbis, with a couple of Reform rabbis. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, I guess a good comparison would be a group claiming to speak for Christians but only having Seventh Day Adventists on its board, plus a couple of Congregationalists. I am absolutely not criticizing these denominations (I belong to one!) but rather saying that it’s disingenuous to claim you represent Jews in general when you’ve excluded most major branches of Judaism and only barely included another, preferring to have numerous student rabbis from one denomination instead of somebody with ordination from any of the others. This is especially so since a prized value in Judaism is the ability to hold space for multiple opinions or perspectives on a topic (“two Jews, three opinions”) and using these disagreements as learning opportunities.

There is definitely not oversight happening around things pretty much all Jews do agree on, though. For example, JVFP chapters stating that there never was a temple in Jerusalem, or that Passover is only about metaphorical liberation, or that tisha b’av should stop being observed. You can look up where the student rabbis are currently enrolled and see the official positions of these institutions and observe for yourself that what JVFP is saying does not line up. What is the oversight board actually doing? I’m not sure.

The official Recon position is that there was a temple and its destruction is still noted.

https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/jewish.../tisha-bav/

JVFP officially acknowledging the demographic makeup of Israel.

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/.../JVP-Jews-of-the...

A statement from JIMENA:

A whoops:

[globalworship]

The NT in Color: A Multiethnic Bible Commentary

Recently published:

The New Testament in Color: A Multiethnic Bible Commentary

"The New Testament in Color is a one-volume commentary on the New Testament written by a multiethnic team of scholars holding orthodox Christian beliefs. Each scholar brings exegetical expertise coupled with a unique interpretive lens to illuminate the ways social location and biblical interpretation work together. Theologically orthodox and multiethnically contextual, The New Testament in Color fills a gap in biblical understanding for both the academy and the church. Who we are and where God placed us—it's all useful for better understanding his Word." - press release

+++

One reviewer:

"Reading the New Testament, intentionally, through one's ethnic point of view (African American, Asian American, Hispanic, or Native American) does not violate an objective, traditional reading of Scripture. Rather, reading the Bible in and out of one's location exposes the bias of the (formerly so-called) 'objective' reading as a Euro-white reading and, at the same time, offers to the traditional readings fresh perspectives. Over and over. I thought the essays were worth the price of this book, but I was wrong. The commentaries interact with the essays in a manner that makes this book a required desk companion for anyone who wants to hear all the Word of God has to offer. A must-have for all Bible teachers and pastors."

-- Dr. Scot McKnight, author of The Second Testament: A New Translation and Julius R. Mantey Chair of New Testament at Northern Seminary

+++

Read more at https://www.ivpress.com/the-new-testament-in-color

The editors and writers come from African American, Asian-American, First Nations, Hispanic, and other cultural backgrounds.

Get a free 48-page 'sampler' download at https://www.ivpress.com/Media/Default/Downloads/Excerpts-and-Samples/The-New-Testament-in-Color-Sampler.pdf

It includes the Table of Contents, the names of all 20+ authors, and much more including essays on: African American Biblical Interpretation Asian American Biblical Interpretation Hispanic Biblical Interpretation Turtle Island [Native American] Biblical Interpretation

Read part of the editor's introduction at https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2024/august-web-only/esau-mccaulley-new-testament-color-multi-ethnic-commentary.html