LEGO RELEASES SET CELEBRATING 'LGBTQIA+' FIGURES AND DRAG QUEENS
from: Daily Signal

(25 May) The left is tearing down mainstream values – brick by brick! Lego, the latest company to pander to the woke, just decided to test the waters with a rainbow set of "LGBTQIA+" figures. "Everyone is awesome!" the iconic toy company tweeted with a picture of the pack, which also boasts a transgender flag-colored spectrum.

And if you’ve always wanted your kids to get an early education on cross-dressers, creator Matthew Ashton says you’re in luck. Although the characters are supposed to be nonconformist, the purple figure is meant as "a clear nod to all the fabulous drag queens out there."

Of course, Lego isn't the first toy company to wade into radical politics. Barbie and American Girl dolls have tried it (to very vocal protests). So did Mr. Potato Head – for about 12 hours. The uproar over the iconic spud was so overwhelming that Hasbro was forced to reverse course with record speed.

"Hold that Tot!" the company tweeted. "Mr. Potato Head isn’t going anywhere. While it was announced today that the potato head brand name and logo are dropping the 'Mr.' I yam proud to confirm that Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head aren't going anywhere and will remain Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head."

If Lego wants to trot down this same controversial path, it'll learn pretty quickly that American parents aren't interested in its building blocks of indoctrination. Most U.S. consumers are wide awake, thanks to the cancel culture, and they're not about to let a major decision by Lego corrupt a playful tradition that they loved as children themselves. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: In case you've been living away in the woods for the past few decades, I should explain that "LGBTQ" doesn't stand for a Lettuce, Gurkin, Bacon, Tomato, and Quinoa sandwich. LGBTQ is an assault on Judeo-Christian values, undermining monotheistic faith and monogomous marriage by means of pagan polytheism in the guise of polyamory. The twisted notion of freedom meaning that you can believe in and do whatever you want has led us into this dead-end of moral and spiritual confusion.

RUSSIA: WIDENED BAN ON "EXTREMISTS" EXERCISING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
by : Forum 18 News Service

(17 May) Religion Law amendments, which come into force in October, ban those the state considers – rightly or wrongly – to be extremists from participating in religious groups. They also ban commercial entities (such as bookshops) from including a religious affiliation in their name unless they were founded by a centralised religious organisation (or, for NGOs, get their approval). Olga Sibiryova of the Moscow-based SOVA Center warns that "the wording of the amendments is very imprecise and leaves room for interpretation" by police and prosecutors.

The latest amendments to the Religion Law, signed by President Vladimir Putin on 5 April, will bar those the state considers – rightly or wrongly – to be extremists from participation in religious groups. Such people are already banned from participation in registered religious organisations.

Religious groups can be either independent or affiliated to centralised religious organisations. In neither case is the religious group a legal entity. Those banned from leading or participating in religious groups could include individual Muslims who meet to study the works of Said Nursi, individual Jehovah's Witnesses, and individuals associated with the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, if these people have been convicted under the Extremism Law or have been added to the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring) "List of Terrorists and Extremists."

It appears likely that opposition politician Aleksey Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FPK), Citizens' Rights Defence Foundation (FZPG), and regional headquarters will also soon be declared "extremist" organisations, as might the All-Tatar Public Centre, a cultural organisation based in Tatarstan's capital Kazan. Individuals associated with such organisations and subsequently convicted of extremism-related offences or placed on the Rosfinmonitoring List would also be banned from participating in religious groups, as well as religious organisations. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: Now that Russia has adopted this vague law that allows the state to label as "extremist" anyone who steps out of the official party line, they can fine or arrest and sentence such a person at will.

PATRIARCH KIRILL WILL NOT ACCEPT THE LOSS OF UKRAINE
from: Religious Information Service of Ukraine

(26 May) Patriarch Kirill of Moscow called it "a crime to interfere in the affairs of the Church for political purposes."

The patriarch of Moscow said in his address on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations, "The interference of politicians in church affairs that we have seen in Ukraine, an attempt to destroy the unity of the Russian Church in favor of geopolitical plans and instant benefits, is a crime before the people, before future generations."

According to the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, Church unity is "a historical fact, the most important and integral component of the spiritual and cultural community of our fraternal peoples - Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Moldovans, Latvians, Estonians and many others."

The Patriarch of Moscow also did not ignore Bartholomew I, calling "the schism of world Orthodoxy committed by the patriarch of Constantinople" one of the most pressing and urgent challenges of our time. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: Did Patriarch Kirill of Moscow actually call it "a crime to interfere in the affairs of the Church for political purposes"? Maybe he was looking in the mirror. One can hardly believe he could imagine saying this, after supporting Russia's invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

FAMILIES OF PEOPLE WITH IDD REBUILD FRAYED TIES AS PANDEMIC EASES
from: Disability Scoop

(25 May) Celeste June Henriquez, a Portland artist, guided her 18-year-old daughter, Abigail Henriquez Peck, through the Portland Museum of Art last week until they reached the place where her two oil paintings, "Big House" and "Snow Coming," hung from the walls.

Henriquez’s works portray bold abstract representations of arches and bridges that symbolize a long separation from her daughter and the difficulties that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to her family. Peck, who has autism, lived in New Hampshire in a residential center for adults with developmental disorders, until moving back to Maine last month. For nearly a year, as the pandemic raged and visitation was curtailed, she was separated from her family except for brief, one-hour visits last summer.

"It made me nervous, and it made me feel sad. I felt like our family was really split," Henriquez said. "She was locked out of all the things she wanted to do, but couldn’t do. She lost her routine, and she’s very much in need of a routine." Families of those with autism and intellectual disabilities have had their lives upended by the pandemic, and typically suffer more acutely than people who do not have these conditions, research shows.

"The impact of the pandemic has been massive on this population," said Dr. Matthew Siegel, director of the developmental disorders program at Maine Behavioral Healthcare. "It has been a silent crisis that has not gotten a great deal of attention in media and government." [read more...]

COMMENTARY: Living in New Hampshire and Maine with their long, cold winters and six months of darkness is indeed enough to make even a normal person feel nervous and sad: my wife and I can relate to this after having lived not far from the Arctic Circle in Russia for 17 years.

UKRAINE LOOKING FORWARD TO PATRIARCH BARTHOLOMEW'S VISIT
from: UNIAN

(27 May) The head of the President's Office Andriy Yermak met on Thursday with Bishop of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon.

"Volodymyr Zelensky is a President who does not use the church for political purposes," Yermak said, adding that today all denominations feel free and independent in Ukraine.

The main priority of President Zelensky and his team remains to end the war and return the temporarily occupied territories and people living there. Andriy Yermak thanked Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and the Ecumenical Patriarchate for their support of Ukraine.

Yermak stressed that "the whole country is looking forward to the visit of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and his participation in the celebration of the 30th anniversary of Ukraine's independence," and conveyed greetings from President Volodymyr Zelensky. The chief of the President's Office assured that the state would ensure that the visit is held at the highest level. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: For many centuries, the standard practice of the Ecumenical Patriarch has been to recognize a new Orthodox Church when a nation becomes independent because it is important to preserve the cultural and linguistic identity of these new nations.

PATRIARCH KIRILL CALLS RUS THE RIGHTFUL HEIR OF BYZANTIUM
from: Interfax-Religion

(24 May) Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia spoke about the special historical vector given to Russia by Slavic educators Cyril and Methodius on the day of remembrance of these holy brothers equal to the apostles.

"We are praying, and we are especially asking them about all of historical Rus, which became the heir of Byzantium and not only preserved the legacy of St. Cyril and Methodius, equal to the apostles, but also increased that legacy, having gone through bloody persecution, the assaults of foreign tribes, and internal strife," the patriarch said on Monday after a holiday liturgy in the Church of Alexander Nevsky in a skete near Peredelkino, which has the same name.

The older brother, Methodius, later became a bishop, and the younger one, Cyril, was a gifted man and held a high position at the court of the Byzantine emperor, he said. "They were called to bring the light of Christian truth northward so that the Slavic people could turn to Christ," the patriarch said.

"We would be absolutely different if it hadn't been for the Orthodox faith, which came into the lives of the Slavic people, including the people who made up historical Rus, through St. Cyril and Methodius, equal to the apostles," the patriarch said. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: This is just one more example of the Russian myth articulated by the Russian Orthodox Church in the 15th and 16th centuries that the Roman Empire fell, then the Byzantine Empire fell, so Russia became the "Third Rome, and a fourth there will never be." Do you see any similarity between a Third Empire and a Third Reich? By the way, "Reich" is German for "empire." This is merely the state using religion to provide a spiritual sanction for expanding its empire – imperialism.

RUSSIA: HOW WILL EXTRA TRAINING OF FOREIGN-EDUCATED CLERGY BE IMPLEMENTED?
from Forum 18 News Service

CHINA: BISHOP AND 10 PRIESTS ARRESTED AND SUBJECTED TO 'POLITICAL SESSIONS' IN XINXIANG
from Christian Persecution

HOW THE POLITICIZATION OF COVID 19 AFFECTS PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
from Disabled World

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH PAID THE PATRIARCHATE OF ANTIOCH TO OPPOSE THE TOMOS OF THE OCU
from Religious Information Service of Ukraine

CHINESE SOCIAL MEDIA SITE RESTRICTS CHRISTIAN CONTENT
from Mission Network News

PUTIN JOINS RELIGIOUS PROCESSION MARKING 1030TH ANNIVERSARY OF BAPTISM OF KIEVAN RUS IN MOSCOW
from Interfax-Religion

METR. HILARION: PATR. BARTHOLOMEW DOES NOT WANT TO ADMIT HIS FAULT IN THE UKRAINIAN PROBLEM
from Russian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate

INTERVIEW: "ORTHODOXY IS ABOUT COMMUNITY"
from Orthodox Christianity

PERU: BISHOPS CONDEMN MASS KILLING BY THE "SHINING PATH" COMMUNIST REBELS
from Eurasia Review

LEADING US PSYCHIATRIST DESCRIBES TRANSGENDER MEDICINE AS 'FOLLY'
from Google News

As you may have noticed, last weekend's scheduled Hosken-News was delayed until now because I was still revising my thesis, "A FIRST-CENTURY VIEW OF YESHUA, THE MESSIAH – A Historical Account of Yesous Khristos, the Anointed One": pray with me that this second draft will be sufficient and will be accepted. It's been a long haul: three years of study with three emergency room visits and hospitalizations.

Two weeks ago, my cardiologist switched me to a new heart medication and now my heartbeat is more regular. After finishing my diaconate studies, I'm able to get more rest and unwind from the stress of reading over 100 books, writing papers and exams. Since writing the first draft of my thesis and waiting for responses from my readers, I've begun assisting at the altar in our church. It turns out that it's quite as much a learning experience! The services in our church are conducted according to a detailed "playscript" in which each movement is laid out. The deacon is sort of like the director of a play, making sure that everyone is "on script" and ready to do their thing at the proper time.

After writing the first draft of my thesis, I picked up a book that I had gotten a few years ago but I put off reading it then: Data and Goliath - The Hidden Battles to Collect your Data and Control your World by Bruce Schneier, probably the world's leading expert on encryption, computer security, and the implications of having so much of our data easily available on the Internet. He published this book back in 2015 but its theme is more relevant today than ever. To better understand my essay below for this issue of Hosken-News, here are a few quotes from the book's concluding chapter:

"Most people today don't seem to care whether their intimate details are collected and used by corporations; they think that surveillance by the governments they trust is a necessary prerequisite to keeping them safe. Most people are still overly scared of terrorism" (p. 265). Further: "Writer and Internet activist Clay Shirkey has noted that 'institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.' Fear is that problem. It's a fear that's stoked by the day's news. As soon as there's a horrific crime or terrorist attack that supposedly could have been prevented if only the FBI or DHS had had access to some data stored by Facebook or encrypted in an iPhone, people will demand to know why... they were prevented from 'connecting the dots'" (p. 269). And finally – "I started this book by talking about data as exhaust: something we all produce as we go about our information-age business. I think I can take that analogy one step further. Data is the pollution problem of the information age, and protecting privacy is the environmental challenge (p. 279).