Sunday, January 07, 2018



Wonderful Japan

Kristoff Kalau

I had been in Japan for about two months.

It was about 10 p.m. on Friday, and I was walking back to my apartment from a bar. The sidewalk was not well lit and there was nobody else around.

That’s when I saw a lone girl walking towards me.

She couldn’t have been more than 10 years old, her face was buried in her phone, and she was still in a school uniform.

In America, I rarely see groups of kids playing in the streets during the day like I used to. I’ve never seen a child walking alone in American cities at night.

The girl didn’t acknowledge my presence. She didn’t glance, change her path, quicken her pace, nor put her phone down. I was nothing to her.

This event, and the dozens of similar ones that happened after it, have always made me feel incredibly happy. It’s refreshing that somewhere in this world families feel safe enough that they don’t keep their children shuttered indoors.

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Swedish Church Declares Both God and Jesus Christ are Now ‘Gender Neutral’

That God is neither male nor female is theologically orthodox and unproblematical -- but verbally awkward.  Use of male pronouns is convenient in some languages, including English.  Saying Jesus was not male is however unscriptural and shows disrespect for the Bible. But there are probably few real Christians in the Swedish church anyway

It was only a matter of time before cultural marxists would eventually target Christianity, as part of their long march through each and every western institution.

Back in November, the radical progressive activists finally managed to change clergy instructions for a Swedish Church, which will now advise officials to avoid terms like ‘Lord’ and ‘He’ when mentioning God or Jesus during church services.

Since then, a new politically correct religious guide has been issued on ‘how to conduct church services.’

Church official and feminist Susann Senter claims that making Jesus gender neutral is OK because some historical art depictions of “Jesus are quite feminine.”

Not surprisingly, the church’s political dictates have triggered a backlash in the country, as parishioners claim that the politicized change actually undermines the core Christian concept of the Holy Trinity – the basis of the religion.

Dangerous.com reports…

Sweden is at the forefront of the social justice movement, and not even Christianity is exempt from the progressive push for inclusivity of genders other than male and female and a full embrace of the ‘gender spectrum.’

Ahead of Christmas this year, the Swedish Church in Västerås released an advertisement in the Swedish newspaper, Västerås Tidning, inviting Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Residents of the city were invited to celebrate his birth at the church, which offered mass, and a Christmas crib.

However, the ad referred to Jesus using the Swedish gender-neutral pronoun of “hen,” which is an alternative to “hon” (she), and “han” (he), according to Expressen.

The church’s female vicar, Susann Senter, said that the decision to refer to Jesus using a gender-neutral pronoun was to respect the progressive view that gender is not determined at birth.

“We did not want to decide on the sex of the child right away,” said Senter, who explained that the decision is partly due to the Church’s gender equality program.

“Welcome Jesus! On Christmas Day, December 25, Jesus was born, a long-awaited child. Hen was born when the happy parents Mary and Joseph were traveling,” read the newspaper ad.

It received mixed reactions. The move prompted outrage from local Swedes on social media who said “it feels stupid,” while others supported the progressive message.

Senter told the newspaper that the whole Swedish church in Västerås has an extensive gender equality program, which was recently implemented for its employees, who are provided with two working days per week to discuss equal treatment.

She explained that how we treat each other based on gender has been a conversation topic at the church.

Senter told Expressen that while Jesus Christ is historically a man, her theological interpretation of the figure makes him “beyond man or woman.”

“If I’m a little provocative, most 19th and 20th century depictions of Jesus are quite feminine. He is gentle, has curly hair and is not very masculine in physique,” she said.

SOURCE




ISIS declares war on Hamas with sickening execution video as it vows to overthrow them from the Gaza Strip for failing to stop Trump's Jerusalem move

Excellent news.  Muslims are great killers of Muslims.  They should do more of it

The Egyptian branch of ISIS has declared war on Palestinian terrorist group Hamas for failing to stop Donald Trump declaring Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

In a brutal propaganda video - purporting to show the execution of a Hamas affiliate - the jihadi group declared war on the Palestinian terror group, which controls much of the Gaza Strip.

Tensions between the rival terrorist organisations have spiralled since 2015, when ISIS released a video saying it would overthrow Gaza's 'tyrants' for their apparent lack of religious fundamentalism.

ISIS's most recent video released on Wednesday shows the man, accused of selling weapons to Hamas, on his knees in an orange jumpsuit.

In the footage the group says it had also declared war on Hamas for its crackdown on small ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim Salafi groups in Gaza.

According to Site, a US monitoring agency that keeps track of jihadi platforms, the 22-minute video shows a man, identified as Abu Kazem al-Maqdisi, urging Islamic followers in Gaza to mount attacks on Hamas.

Maqdisi, who is originally from Gaza but now preaches hate in Sinai, says in the footage: '[Hamas] uses its smuggled weapons to empower that which was not revealed by God.

'It also fights supporters of the Islamic State in Gaza and the Sinai and prevents the migration of these supporters from Gaza to the Sinai'

Towards the end of the recording, the narrator identifies the Hamas collaborator as Musa Abu Zamat. Zamat is then shot in the back of his head at point-blank range by an Islamist holding a pistol, reports the International Business Times.

One militant steps forward, saying: 'Never surrender to them. Use explosives, silenced pistols and sticky bombs.

'Bomb their courts and their security locations, for these are the pillars of tyranny that prop up its throne.'

The propaganda video cuts to images of Khaled Meshaal, the former Hamas leader who stepped down in April this year, alongside Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran has publicly backed the Palestinian group in recent years, providing it with missiles and funding its extensive tunnel network it uses to enter Israeli territory, reports Newsweek.

Hamas has fought three wars with Israel, the last of which was in 2014.

While some thought Donald Trump's December decision to relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would ignite a fourth war Hamas' response has been muted.

Jerusalem is contested ground and hosts holy shrines valuable to both Islam and Judaism   

Both the US and the European Union have designated Hamas as an extremist organisation.

Israel's far-right often compares the group to ISIS for its radical interpretation of Islam. However, the group stops short of calling for Sharia law. But like ISIS, the group has carried out public execution on the streets of Gaza. It claims it only does to punish those who collaborate with its nemesis Israel.

SOURCE




Migrant hardliner Viktor Orban puts Angela Merkel coalition talks in jeopardy

Angela Merkel’s attempts to form a coalition government face a new challenge today from her conservative allies who will push demands for tougher action on immigration with the help of Hungary’s hardline prime minister.

Viktor Orban is regarded as the German chancellor’s nemesis for his rejection of her welcome to more than a million asylum seekers. He is to give his views on defending Europe’s borders at the winter gathering of Bavaria’s conservative party, the Christian Social Union (CSU).

His invitation was regarded as a blunt message to Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) that the Bavarians will not compromise in the three-party coalition talks on their demands for tougher measures to deter migrants.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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