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FIRST, THE NEWS: |
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DUTCH DOCTOR IN COURT OVER EUTHANASIA OF DEMENTED WOMAN
from: BioEdge
(1 Sep.) For the first time since legalisation in 2002, a Dutch doctor has appeared in court for performing euthanasia. Prosecutors allege that the doctor did not do enough to confirm that a demented patient still wanted to proceed with her advance directive.
In 2016 the relatives of a 74-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer's and two doctors decided that the time had come to carry out those instructions. They put a sedative in her coffee and a doctor commenced a lethal injection. But the woman resisted and her daughter and husband had to wrestle her down to give her the needle.
The now-retired female doctor says that she was acting cautiously. The relatives are supporting her. "The doctor freed my mother from the mental prison which she ended up in," her daughter said. The prosecutors are not seeking a custodial sentence, but they are trying to clarify the legal status of the euthanasia of demented patients.
"A crucial question to this case is how long a doctor should continue consulting a patient with dementia, if the patient in an earlier stage already requested euthanasia," prosecution service spokeswoman Sanna van der Harg stated. "We do not doubt the doctor's honest intentions." [read more --]
RUSSIA: LOSING PLACES OF WORSHIP
by Victoria Arnold: Forum 18 News Service
(6 Sep.) Some religious communities in Russia are facing the loss of their places of worship because of a combination of complex, sometimes contradictory, and often inconsistently applied legislation, and the unwillingness of local authorities to permit the construction of purpose-built churches, Forum 18 has found.
In one current example, a Baptist community in Novorossiysk has been barred from using its church "for religious purposes," despite the fact that it has worshiped on the same site for two decades. The authorities tried to have the house where the church meets demolished in 2018. When this failed, they began seeking through the courts a ban on use of the building for worship. Bailiffs sealed the door to the prayer hall on 7 July 2019.
The ban is a "flagrant violation" of the Religion Law and of the Constitution, Presbyter Yevgeny Kokora commented, as it prevents believers from coming together to profess their faith. Officials in Novorossiysk have failed to respond to Forum 18's detailed written questions about the enforced closure of the Baptist church.
Other recent cases include the demolition of a Seventh-day Adventist church in Novosibirsk and the possible demolition of a Pentecostal church in Samara. Such cases can arise because communities meet in residential or other private property. This means that they may easily contravene, knowingly or unknowingly, the complicated requirements of Russia's land laws. Municipal government responses are frequently heavy-handed. [read more --]
HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT: STATE TASK TO SUPPORT BUILDING CHURCHES
from: Hungary Today
(2 Sep.) It is the government's task and obligation, where possible, to support efforts to build churches, Miklós Soltész, the state secretary in charge of church and international relations said on Sunday at the opening of a new church in Eger, in northern Hungary.
The building of the new mission centre named after Pope Saint John Paul II had 250 million forints (EUR 755,000) of its costs paid by the state, he said. It was symbolic that the church was built in a communist-era housing estate where the buildings are arranged in a way as to form the letters CCCP (Russian abbreviation for the Soviet Union) when viewed from above.
"It was a major effort by the Soviet Union and communism to completely eradicate faith, religion and Christianity, and wherever new housing estates were built … churches were not allowed to be built," Soltész said.
IWe are delighted that, contrary to the very sad western European practice of closing down churches and turning them into entertainment venues and gyms, Hungary is doing the opposite," he said. [read more --]
"RUSSIAN EXARCHATE" IN EUROPE REFUSED TO SUBORDINATE TO CONSTANTINOPLE
from: Interfax-Religion
(4 Sep.) Constantinople’s decision to exclude the head of the "Russian exarchate" in Europe made the latter speed up its decision on restoring unity with the Moscow Patriarchate, the communique published on Tuesday says.
It is noted that Archbishop John did not ask for a letter of release from Constantinople, and this decision of Phanar will not influence the exarchate’s plans to hold its General Assembly on September 7, which will take the decision about the canonical status of this church structure.
However, Constantinople's decision in Istanbul resulted in changing the agenda of the forum, the communique notes. It was supposed that its participants will consider two alternatives: an option of staying with the Constantinople Church and another option of joining the Moscow Patriarchate.
The communique states that "the first option referring to considering a new church structure for the Archdiocese under Constantinople is now outdated. Thus, the General Assembly on September 7 will only has to adopt a decision on the project of joining the Moscow Patriarchate,"" which has been worked out for six months by the Joint Commission.
As was reported, late in November 2018 the Synod in Istanbul adopted the unilateral decision on dismissing the “Russian exarchate” and suggested its clergy and believers to subordinate to local Greek hierarchs. The Archdiocese did not agree with this decision and started discussing options of its future, one of them was restoring unity with the Russian Orthodox Church. [read more --]
61 Million adults in the United States live with a disability -- that's 26%, or over 1 in every 4 people. (Click on the "Center for Disease Control" link above or the photo to see all six parts of this infographic. You can also download it as a PDF.) The second part of the infographic shows us the percentages of adults with functional disability types: 13.7% - mobility, 10.8% - cognition, 6.8% - independent living, 5.9% - hearing, 4.6% - vision, and 3.7% - self-care.
Why don't we know about disabilities? It's because we literally don't see most of them: people with mobility or self-care, cognition, and independent living problems can't get out easily to public places like shopping, church, restaurants, etc.: we don't see them because they're not there, so - "Out of sight, out of mind" - we assume they don't exist! Also, we likely have an unconscious bias against disability: it reminds us of our own mortality, so we would rather not think about it.
Then there are the "invisible disabilities": you see the person but you don't see their disability, such as back problems that limit a person's ability, for example, to carry over 15 pounds or walk more than a block or two so you think they're lazy, or hearing loss that may make you think the person is ignoring you or is sort of stupid or doesn't understand English (I have a bad back and shouldn't carry heavy stuff; I also have severe hearing loss - even with hearing aids I often can't understand speech, especially in a noisy environment. . . although I like to meet people, have a doctorate degree, and know several languages).
This is an urgent issue for Christians to address: we are ignoring 26% of the people in the world! And these are the very people to whom Jesus Christ directed most of His ministry - "the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind." The Gospel teaches us "love your neighbor as yourself," but if we don't see them, we don't have to love them, right? Wrong! The Russian verb "to hate" literally means "to not look at" or "to not see" -- if we look the other way in the presence of a disabled person or ignore a beggar or a person who can't hear very well and it's hard to hold a conversation, we do not love them -- we "do not look at" them -- we hate them. It isn't easy to overcome these prejudices that we've built up over a lifetime, but we must try. We must change. Change is hard, but change we must. [read more --]
BELARUS: "UNAFFORDABLE" POLICE FEES STOP GREEK CATHOLIC PILGRIMAGE
by Olga Glace: Forum 18 News Service
(27 Aug.) At the last minute, Greek Catholic Church leaders had to cancel what would have been their 25th annual pilgrimage from Vitebsk to Polotsk in mid-July because of "unaffordable" police fees. The fee demanded would have represented one day's average pay for each of the up to 100 expected participants, plus fees for health provision and cleaning along the route.
The fees to be paid to the police, medical workers and cleaners were required under a controversial January Council of Ministers Decree which imposes such fees on many kinds of public events. The Vitebsk Regional authorities had already approved the pilgrimage, but warned that the fees set out in the Decree would be payable.
Following Catholic complaints, the Interior Minister wrote in May to say that Council of Ministers Decree No. 49 would not apply to religious organisations' events at designated venues, such as churches and cemeteries. However, the police told the Greek Catholics that pilgrimage routes do not count as designated venues, only pilgrimage sites.
"This is outrageous! Officials said that the Decree does not apply to religious organisations," pilgrimage organizer Fr. Dmitry Grishan complained to Forum 18 from Vitebsk. "3,000 Roubles [per person] is too much for us. I didn't even go to the other authorities to find out their prices."
The annual pilgrimage, which started in 1995, brings up to 100 Greek Catholics from all regions of Belarus who walk about 100 kms (60 miles) from Vitebsk to Polotsk in northern Belarus to commemorate the killing of five Basilian monks 400 years ago. It is the only such national Greek Catholic event.
Fr. Grishan considers the demand to involve police services ill-grounded. "From whom they are going to protect us? For 24 years there have never been any conflicts during the pilgrimage," he complained. He assured Forum 18 that ambulance escort and communal services are not needed either, as among the laypeople are healthcare workers and people responsible for cleaning. [read more --]
OTHER NEWS HEADLINES:
HUNGARIAN DEPUTY PM: NUMBER OF CHURCH SCHOOLS DOUBLED SINCE 2010
from Hungary Today
DAY-VII ARCHITECTURE: HOW THE ARCHITECTURE OF POLISH CHURCHES DEVELOPED IN A SECULAR SOCIALIST STATE
from Arch Daily
CHINESE YOUTH CANNOT CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY UNTIL THEY'RE 18
from Mission Network News
JERUSALEM PATRIARCH TAKES THE SIDE OF RUSSIAN CHURCH IN THE "UKRAINIAN QUESTION"
from Interfax-Religion
UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX LEADER EXPRESSES ANTI-RUSSIAN THEMES
from Religious Information Service of Ukraine
METROPOLITAN MARK OF RYAZAN AND MIKHAILOVSK SPEAKS ON CONSTRUCTION OF 'WALKABLE CHURCHES'
from Russian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate
KÖVÉR: 'HAVING CHILDREN IS PUBLIC AFFAIR'
from Hungary Today
PATRIARCH IRINEJ OF SERBIA RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL
from Orthodox Christianity
PRINKIPO GREEK ORTHODOX ORPHANAGE: SYMBOL OF GREEK PERSECUTION IN TURKEY
from ChristianPersecution.com
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NOW, OUR VIEWS:
How Many Disabled People Are in Your Church?
Notice how the likelihood of disability increases with age, as shown in this graphic. How Many Disabled People Are in Your Church? How does your church compare to society at large? Does your church accommodate people with disabilities, or are there architectural barriers? How can we more effectively minister to these people in our church and society at large?
The 75 million "Baby Boomers" born in the twenty years from 1946 through 1965 are now retiring, and nearly half of them need serious health care. They've worked and saved for 50 years during the "boom" years of the U.S. economy, and now they're spending those 18.8 trillion dollars they've saved up: 75,000,000 people x $250,000 of average savings. But that average includes the wealthy who may have millions in retirement funds: the median (mid-point) of retirees have less than $50,000 - litle or nothing - saved up. Will you have enough in savings to move to an Assisted Living center or Nursing Home at $3,000 to $8,000 per month? Don't count on Social Security and Medicare - they're going broke: there will be too many retired and disabled people, and not enough younger people paying into the system.
As this photo shows, 45% of these retired "Baby Boomers" are disabled. And statistics tell us about 70% of us will spend two or three years on average (some longer!) needing care by others before we pass on. 70% of 75,000,000 Baby-Boomers = over Fifty Million disabled elderly people! For a married couple, it's over 90% probability that one or the other will be disabled. (70% for one, plus 70% of the remaining 30% for the other = 91%.) You may hope that you go quickly via a sudden heart attack or stroke, but more often than not those events or a bad back, bad hips, bad knees, foot amputations due to diabetes, etc. all bring on long-term disability rather than sudden death.
Be honest with yourself: are you going to hand over your retirement savings to a secular nursing home, or will you use it "to minister to the building up of the Body of Christ" (Eph. 4:12) and at the same time provide a home for yourself where you can eventually age-in-place? Our planned Agape Restoration Communities will be handicapped-accessible for Independent Living and have a community room/chapel, 1-bedroom & 2-bedroom "accessible living units." [This is not a medical facility which requires a nursing staff on site 24/7, but if people need occasional help, they can call one of our trained "Social Ministry" volunteers to help them, or an outside home health aide.]
Check out the six courses in our ""Social Ministry of the Church" one-year program. And please download our brochure in PDF format for all our courses to print and distribute: SMC-brochure.pdf. This is how we can restore the Early Church's social ministry to "the poor, the lame, the maimed and the blind, to widows and orphans." You may become that person who responds to the call for a home health aide!
On the "Welcome" page to our courses you'll see a "LOGIN" link. As it explains, you can login as "guest" to ENROLL, or try out our lessons and send in your answers to see how our interactive courses work, or you can browse the lessons without logging in as a "guest".
When you enroll, however, you can participate in a structured class according to a syllabus, taking part in group discussions, getting graded replies for your answers to each lesson, and hopefully receiving a certificate upon completion of all six courses. Our 20+ years of experience teaching online has proven that people who study with a group of other students tend to stick with it much more than those who simply study our lessons solo.
At the bottom of our "Welcome" page you'll read the following for priests/pastors and deacons:
"Click HERE to see three ways you can help teach these courses:
1. We teach the entire course and you simply observe,
2. You lead your discussion group and we grade the lessons,
3. You lead your discussion group and grade the lessons.
(You can also use our software to create your own courses.)"
Our first news article DUTCH DOCTOR IN COURT OVER EUTHANASIA OF DEMENTED WOMAN reminds us of the fact that euthanasia is gaining ground around the world, not only in Western Europe but also in the U.S. The national, grassroots disability rights group NotDeadYet.org opposes legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia as deadly forms of discrimination. Their website shows a placard with the picture of a skull and crossbones on a pill bottle and the inscription - "World's Cheapest Health Care." To say that the idea of saving money by killing a patient never entered the mind of that Dutch doctor is quite a stretch.
And our next news article RUSSIA: LOSING PLACES OF WORSHIP outlines the problem that we've seen many times in the USSR and later in Russia and the former Soviet republics: a community of Christians wants a place to worship but the government won't let them buy or lease any building or land for that purpose, so the Christians are forced to worship in a building registered as a private house or apartment. For years, many of such instances were allowed to occur with the full knowledge of the government, but now it's cracking down and forcing those "house churches" to close, even demolishing them in some cases. See our essay WE'RE STICKING TO OUR PLAN! below for a current example of such anti-religious discrimination that just happened to us right here in the U.S.
In contrast, HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT: STATE TASK TO SUPPORT CHURCH BUILDING, our third news article, illustrates how the post-communist government of Hungary is taking a firm pro-Christian stand in an effort to recover from communism's drive "to completely eradicate faith, religion and Christianity." Soviet communism didn't succeed, but "soft" socialism is still trying, even here in the U.S.
The schism in Orthodoxy over Ukraine between the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Moscow Patriarchate continues, now extending into Western Europe as described in our fourth news article "RUSSIAN EXARCHATE" IN EUROPE REFUSED TO SUBORDINATE TO CONSTANTINOPLE. The Ecumenical Patriarch sent out instructions that the Orthodox churches in Western Europe should report to him, but the Moscow Patriarch convinced them to ignore it and come under Moscow's umbrella.
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Did you know that 26%, over one out of every four, of American adults has a disability? No? Why didn't you know? Because you don't see them! Read our fifth news article DISABILITY IMPACTS ALL OF US. See the whole report from the Center for Disease Control: it's a real eye-opener!
Another example of unreasonable demands being placed upon Christians is detailed in our sixth news article BELARUS: "UNAFFORDABLE" POLICE FEES STOP GREEK CATHOLIC PILGRIMAGE. The 3,000 Ruble per person fee for police protection made this year's pilgrimage financially impossible. This is just another way to limit the free exercise of religion.
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WE'RE STICKING TO OUR PLAN!
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner; but endure hardship for the Gospel according to the power of God, Who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before times eternal" (2 Tim.1:7-9).
We have the Spirit of power, not of fear. God has called us according to His grace, and that grace is the power, the energies of God Himself, not just a free gift like a birthday present. God's powerful grace gives us the ability to "endure hardship for the Gospel"!
Why am I saying this? On Thursday evening, September 5, we testified at a meeting of the Trafford Zoning Board. Trafford is the borough where we have an Offer to Purchase a beautiful 8.8-acre property on which to build our Agape Restoration Community. This property is the only "R-3 Multiple-Family"-zoned property left in Trafford where we could build a multi-family Christian co-op housing community. Back in May of this year, we received zoning approval to have a community room/chapel in one of the buildings, so we went ahead with sketching conceptual drawings and negotiating with the seller about purchasing the property. Then it happened:
Our architect's earlier proposal to the borough was that R-1 Single Family zones can include educational and religious use, so each less-restrictive zone (R-2 Double-, Multiple-Family, and Group Housing, as well as R-3 Multiple-Family) should also include educational and religious use and this was granted. But later, the borough's attorney returned a legal opinion that in order to have a community room/chapel in our Christian community, we would need a "variance" to the R-3 zoning rules. The borough retracted what they had earlier granted.
Here's what I wrote yesterday to those who said they were praying about the Zoning Board meeting: "The meeting with Trafford Zoning Board last night to request a variance for a 'community room/chapel' in our proposed Agape Restoration Community did not go well for us. All board members and townspeople who spoke had very picky, irrelevant, negative, anti-religious and even anti-Christian comments. The townspeople all made 'NIMBY' (Not In My Back Yard) remarks and some made false and slanderous statements about me personally. None of them spoke up in favor of granting the variance.
"The board's final decision will come on Sep. 25 at 7 p.m. but at this point, it seems not worthwhile to try to move ahead with this location: the locals will fight it at every turn. The last time, about 30 years ago, some builders proposed a townhouse community on this hilltop, the locals all pitched in to hire lawyers, brought a lawsuit and killed the project. We had hoped we could avoid such reactions this time around, but the same old attitudes - plus anti-religious ones - prevailed."
That meeting was like a punch in the face or in the gut: it temporarily knocked the wind out of our sails. But after another night's sleep and a clearer head, I've decided to press our case that this contradicts the normal application of English law on which U.S. law is based that whatever is not specifically forbidden is permitted: religious use in R-3 zones is not forbidden, so it should be permitted. It also flies in the face of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting "Freedom of Religious Expression" and all the legal precedents for "Freedom of Religious Association." Zoning rules can't overrule the U.S. Constitution.
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One of the Zoning Board members kept asking questions like - "What if a Muslim wants to live in your Christian community because the housing is nicer and less expensive than comparable places?" My reply was that this is a Christian community, not a Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or atheist community, so why would a Muslim really want to live in a specifically a Christian community? Those other religious confessions are free to build their own religious communities. The board member replied, "Isn't that discrimination?" No, it's freedom of religious association. To force Christians to accept into their community adherents of other faiths would be anti-religious discrimination.
Another board member asked whether the housing co-op fees would be used to support the religious use of the community room/chapel or clergy. Questions like these are irrelevant to the zoning variance application and display an obvious anti-religious, anti-Christian bias. My philosophy professor in university taught us - "To get the right answer, you have to ask the right question." If questions are phrased in such a way that the unavoidable answers sought for are - "Yes, it's discrimination," or "Yes, it's supporting clergy," then those are the wrong questions. The real, right question is - "Does this encourage or discourage the freedom of religious expression and association?"
If we fold on this issue, if we give up the struggle for freedom of religious expression and association, we and other Christians will increasingly be painted into a corner, told - "You can have your religious beliefs if you keep them to yourself, but you can't express them openly with others or hold religious meetings in your own homes or on your own property."
This is precisely what the socialist, secularist ideology and totalitarian religions try to impose on Christians. . . if they allow them to exist at all and don't physically exterminate them. The United States of America was founded on the principles of the freedoms of speech and of religious expression, not merely freedom of thought and freedom of religious belief. People of various beliefs or unbelief should be able to live in peace in this country, expressing their beliefs in their own communities.
For over fifty years now, I have been working and writing for the freedom of religious expression, working for these rights in communist and post-communist Central Europe and Russia. I have published literally hundreds of issues of newsletters and thousands of articles and social media posts on these matters. In this current issue of Hosken-News you will find various articles and my views about zoning restrictions being manipulated in order to deny Christians the right to meet together for worship, etc.
Authorities in one town in Russia where we lived first granted permission to construct a building for worship and then after believers spent much money on building materials and began construction, local Christians of another confession scrawled "Death to Baptists!" on the construction fence and tore down what was started on the building. If you look through the past issues of our Hosken-News over the past nearly 20 years, you'll find hundreds of articles on this very same kind of anti-religious discrimination and persecution.
Our organization Agape Restoration Society Inc. has expended thousands of dollars on architectural fees, an Offer to Purchase, zoning board applications, and now lawyers' fees to build an Agape Restoration Community in Trafford. If we throw in the towel now, that will be money that is lost. But more importantly, it will be one more hole in the dike that's keeping back the flood of the socialist, secularist ideology which is trying very hard to gradually impose its worldview on Christians and on other faiths. We're sticking to our plan!
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!
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Please remember to pray for Christians in socialist countries, and for --
Your fellow-servants,
Bob & Cheryl
p.s. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.
- 07 Sep. 2019