The Week in Review - Dec. 17 - 24, 2010

Bombs in Rome, an odd way to celebrate breaking away from the Vatican, Britain complies with European law, and a busy month for the 111th U.S. Congress—for better or worse.

Europe: The Next Chapter

Insight into the next stage of Europe’s emergence as a German-led superstate.
Acticle by: Brad Macdonald

It is the most important story of 2010.

The financial crisis in Europe has driven every nation on the Continent to its knees before Germany, and Berlin has exploited the crisis to tangibly and forcefully reshape the European Union.

It’s also a scenario that was described by Herbert Armstrong—more than 50 years ago. “Germany is the economic and military heart of Europe,” he wrote in 1953. “Without Germany such a federation of nations is impossible. Yet the other nations of Europe will not trust Germany or a German leader. Still, in spite of this, it is probable that none but a German can provide the dynamic, inspired leadership required to organize such a political military federation” (Good News, May 1953). For decades, Mr. Armstrong warned tirelessly that Germany would be revived and that it would successfully create a European superstate!

As we enter 2011, a year in which Germany will continue to exploit the financial crisis to further its own ambitions, it is important to consider: What is the next chapter in the emergence of this German-designed United States of Europe?

Once again, we turn to the Bible-based, profoundly accurate forecasting of Herbert Armstrong for the answer.

In August 1978, Mr. Armstrong wrote: “Europeans want their own united military power! … They have made a real effort toward union in the Common Market. … But they well know there is but one possibility of union in Europe—and that is through the Vatican” (Good News, emphasis his).

Two years later, he warned that “world conditions may force European nations … to unite, bringing to pass the revived ‘Holy Roman Empire’ …. [European nations] have wanted to unite politically, with a common currency and common military force, for some time—but have been unable. It can be accomplished only through the Vatican” (Worldwide News, June 1980).

In 1979, Mr. Armstrong described a scenario that is remarkably relevant in 2010. “The nations of Europe have been striving to become reunited. They desire a common currency, a single combined military force, a single united government. They have made a start in the Common Market. They are now working toward a common currency. Yet, on a purely political basis, they have been totally UNABLE to unite” (Plain Truth, January 1979). In spite of these conflicting political interests, Mr. Armstrong explained, European countries will find a way to unite. How?

“In only one way can this resurrected Holy Roman Empire be brought to fruition—by the ‘good offices’ of the Vatican, uniting church and state once again, with the Vatican astride and ruling.”

This is the next chapter in Europe’s emergence as a German-led superstate: The axis between the Vatican and Europe, particularly Germany, will become much stronger and extremely powerful!

Soon—perhaps this coming year—expect the Vatican to take center stage in Europe, and for a church-state relationship to materialize!

Of course, many smart geopolitical analysts will think this forecast preposterous. In our post-Reformation, “intellectually enlightened” world, the Vatican is rarely considered a force in geopolitics. Catholicism is widely thought of as little more than an innocuous religion, the Vatican an archaic institution fighting to secure its place in a world in which secularism and Islam have it on the ropes. To too many people, the Vatican is considered a spent force, a relic of the Middle Ages—an institution with minimal influence on world affairs.

In the months and years ahead, this perception will change dramatically!

In fact, the Vatican is already making a resurgence as a force in international relations. On December 10, the Guardian reported on cables from U.S. officials, disclosed by WikiLeaks, that reveal the Vatican working behind the scenes to shape events in Europe. In one cable, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict xvi, is reported to have been secretly encouraging European leaders to oppose Turkey’s entrance into the European Union. Other documents reveal Catholic officials working to influence global debates on issues such as global warming and human cloning.

Apparently, the Guardian found the cables somewhat eye-opening. “Roman Catholicism is the only religion in the world with the status of a sovereign state, allowing the pope’s most senior clerics to sit at the top table with world leaders,” it reported. “The [WikiLeaks] cables reveal the Vatican routinely wielding influence through diplomatic channels while sometimes denying that it is doing so” (emphasis mine).

If you’ve read a smidgen of European history, this revelation isn’t the least bit surprising!

The Catholic Church has been the most significant and defining force in Europe for more than 1,500 years. From the time that Emperor Constantine institutionalized Catholicism as the state religion of the Roman Empire at the Council of Nicea in a.d. 325, Catholic officials and the Vatican have maintained ties with virtually all the major monarchies and governments in Europe.

The Vatican was behind Emperor Justinian in the sixth century when he purged Germanic tribes from Rome, reuniting the western Roman Empire with the east. In the eighth century, the pope provided moral and spiritual cover to Charlemagne as his armies swept across Europe, converting via the sword an entire continent to Catholicism. Similar church-state relationships existed under Otto the Great and the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburgs in the 16th century, Napoleon in the early 19th, and Nazi Germany in the 20th.

Fifteen hundred years of European history testify to this reality: When seismic events occur in Europe, the Vatican always plays a central role!

Many now recognize that Europe is currently experiencing a political, economic and military shift of tremendous proportions. In the time ahead, as Germany continues to reshape the Continent, Europe will enter the next chapter of its emergence as a global superstate. Expect the Vatican to reclaim its historic and prophetic role as the most powerful force in Europe—this time sitting astride the now-imminent United States of Europe!

God's Festivals in the New Testament

1. Passover

Commanded in Old Testament:
 
Leviticus 23:5

Observed by Jesus Christ, the apostles or the Church in the New Testament:
 
Matthew 26:2, 17-19
Mark 14:12-16
Luke 2:41-42; 22:1, 7-20
John 2:13, 23; 6:4; 13:1-30
1 Corinthians 11:23-29
 
2. Feast of Unleavened Bread

Commanded in Old Testament:
 
Leviticus 23:6-8

Observed by Jesus Christ, the apostles or the Church in the New Testament:
 
Matthew 26:17
Mark 14:12
Luke 2:41-42, 22:1,7
Acts 20:6
1 Corinthians 5:6-8
 
3. Feast of Pentecost

Commanded in Old Testament:
 
Leviticus 23:15-22

Observed by Jesus Christ, the apostles or the Church in the New Testament:
 
Acts 2:1-21; 20:16
1 Corinthians 16:8
 
4. Feast of Trumpets*

Commanded in Old Testament:
 
Leviticus 23:23-25

Observed by Jesus Christ, the apostles or the Church in the New Testament:
 
Matthew 24:30-31
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
Revelation 11:15
 
5. Day of Atonement

Commanded in Old Testament:
 
Leviticus 23:26-32

Observed by Jesus Christ, the apostles or the Church in the New Testament:
 
Acts 27:9
 
6. Feast of Tabernacles

Commanded in Old Testament:
 
Leviticus 23:33-43

Observed by Jesus Christ, the apostles or the Church in the New Testament:
 
John 7:1-2, 8, 10, 14
 
7. The Eighth Day (sometimes called the Last Great Day)

Commanded in Old Testament:
 
Leviticus 23:36

Observed by Jesus Christ, the apostles or the Church in the New Testament:
 
John chapters 7-9

 

*Although the Feast of Trumpets is not mentioned by name in the New Testament, the theme of the day—the sounding of trumpets announcing Jesus Christ's return—is mentioned by several New Testament authors as noted in the references.

Christmas: The Untold Story

People almost everywhere observe Christmas. But how did Christmas come to be observed? How did the customs and practices associated with Christmas make their way into traditional Christianity's most popular holiday?

Did you know December 25 has a checkered past, a long and contentious history? This should come as no surprise given that Christmas and many of its popular customs and trappings are nowhere set forth in the Bible.

Our Creator's view of this popular holiday is ignored or not even considered by most people. Yet His perspective should be our main consideration. Let's examine the history of Christmas and compare it with God's Word, rather than our own ideas and experiences, to discover His opinion regarding this nearly universal holiday.

Historians tell us the Christmas celebration came from questionable origins. William Walsh (1854-1919) summarizes the holiday's origins and practices in his book The Story of Santa Klaus: "We remember that the Christmas festival ... is a gradual evolution from times that long antedated the Christian period ... It was overlaid upon heathen festivals, and many of its observances are only adaptations of pagan to Christian ceremonial" (1970, p. 58).

How could pagan practices become part of a major church celebration? What were these "heathen festivals" that lent themselves to Christmas customs over the centuries?

The ancient origins of Christmas customs
During the second century B.C., the Greeks practiced rites to honor their god Dionysus (also called Bacchus). The Latin name for this celebration was Bacchanalia. It spread from the Greeks to Rome, center of the Roman Empire.

"It was on or about December 21st that the ancient Greeks celebrated what are known to us as the Bacchanalia or festivities in honor of Bacchus, the god of wine. In these festivities the people gave themselves up to songs, dances and other revels which frequently passed the limits of decency and order" (Walsh, p. 65).

Because of the nocturnal orgies associated with this festival, the Roman Senate suppressed its observance in 186 B.C. It took the senators several years to completely accomplish this goal because of the holiday's popularity.

Suppressing a holiday was unusual for the Romans since they later became a melting pot of many types of gods and worship. Just as the Romans assimilated culture, art and customs from the peoples absorbed into their empire, they likewise adopted those peoples' religious practices.

In addition to the Bacchanalia, the Romans celebrated another holiday, the Saturnalia, held "in honor of Saturn, the god of time, [which] began on December 17th and continued for seven days. These also often ended in riot and disorder. Hence the words Bacchanalia and Saturnalia acquired an evil reputation in later times" (p. 65).

The reason for the Saturnalia's disrepute is revealing. In pagan mythology Saturn was an "ancient agricultural god-king who ate his own children presumably to avoid regicide [being murdered while king]. And Saturn was parallel with a Carthaginian Baal, whose brazen horned effigy contained a furnace into which children were sacrificially fed" (William Sansom, A Book of Christmas, 1968, p. 44).

Notice the customs surrounding the Saturnalia: "All businesses were closed except those that provided food or revelry. Slaves were made equal to masters or even set over them. Gambling, drinking, and feasting were encouraged. People exchanged gifts, called strenae, from the vegetation goddess Strenia, whom it was important to honor at midwinter ... Men dressed as women or in the hides of animals and caroused in the streets. Candles and lamps were used to frighten the spirits of darkness, which were [considered] powerful at this time of year. At its most decadent and barbaric, Saturnalia may have been the excuse among Roman soldiers in the East for the human sacrifice of the king of the revels" (Gerard and Patricia Del Re, The Christmas Almanac, 1979, p. 16).

Winter-solstice celebrations

Both of these ancient holidays were observed around the winter solstice — the day of the year with the shortest period of daylight. "From the Romans also came another Christmas fundamental: the date, December 25. When the Julian calendar was proclaimed in 46 C.E. [A.D.], it set into law a practice that was already common: dating the winter solstice as December 25. Later reforms of the calendar would cause the astronomical solstice to migrate to December 21, but the older date's irresistible resonance would remain" (Tom Flynn, The Trouble With Christmas, 1993, p. 42).

On the heels of the Saturnalia, the Romans marked December 25 with a celebration called the Brumalia. Bruma is thought to have been contracted from the Latin brevum or brevis, meaning brief or short, denoting the shortest day of the year.

Why was this period significant? "The time of the winter solstice has always been an important season in the mythology of all peoples. The sun, the giver of life, is at its lowest ebb. It is [the] shortest daylight of the year; the promise of spring is buried in cold and snow. It is the time when the forces of chaos that stand against the return of light and life must once again be defeated by the gods. At the low point of the solstice, the people must help the gods through imitative magic and religious ceremonies. The sun begins to return in triumph. The days lengthen and, though winter remains, spring is once again conceivable. For all people, it is a time of great festivity" (Del Re, p. 15).

During the days of Jesus' apostles in the first century, the early Christians had no knowledge of Christmas as we know it. But, as a part of the Roman Empire, they may have noted the Roman observance of the Saturnalia while they themselves persisted in celebrating the customary "feasts of the Lord" (listed in Leviticus 23).

The Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us that "the first Christians ... continued to observe the Jewish festivals, though in a new spirit, as commemorations of events which those festivals had foreshadowed" (11th edition, Vol. 8, p. 828, "Easter").

Over the following centuries, new, nonbiblical observances such as Christmas and Easter were gradually introduced into traditional Christianity. History shows that these new days came to be forcibly promoted while the biblical feast days of apostolic times were systematically rejected. "Christmas, the [purported] festival of the birth of Jesus Christ, was established in connection with a fading of the expectation of Christ's imminent return" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, Macropaedia, Vol. 4, p. 499, "Christianity").

The message of Jesus Christ and the apostles—"the gospel of the kingdom of God" (Mark 1:14-15)—was soon lost. The Christmas celebration shifted Christianity's focus away from Christ's promised return to His birth. But is this what the Bible directs Christians to do?

How the Christmas date was set

Gerard and Patricia Del Re explain the further evolution of December 25 as an official Roman celebration: "Saturnalia and the kalends [new moon, in this case of January] were the celebrations most familiar to early Christians, December 17-24 and January 1-3, but the tradition of celebrating December 25 as Christ's birthday came to the Romans from Persia. Mithra, the Persian god of light and sacred contracts, was born out of a rock on December 25. Rome was famous for its flirtations with strange gods and cults, and in the third century [274] the unchristian emperor Aurelian established the festival of Dies Invicti Solis, the Day of the Invincible Sun, on December 25.

"Mithra was an embodiment of the sun, so this period of its rebirth was a major day in Mithraism, which had become Rome's latest official religion with the patronage of Aurelian. It is believed that the emperor Constantine adhered to Mithraism up to the time of his conversion to Christianity. He was probably instrumental in seeing that the major feast of his old religion was carried over to his new faith" (The Christmas Almanac, 1979, p. 17).

Although it is difficult to determine the first time anyone celebrated December 25 as Christmas, historians are in general agreement that it was sometime during the fourth century.

This is an amazingly late date. Christmas was not observed in Rome, the capital of the empire, until about 300 years after Christ's death. Its origins cannot be traced back to either the teachings or practices of the earliest Christians. The introduction of Christmas represented a significant departure from "the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).

European influences on Christmas customs

Although Christmas had been officially established in Rome by the fourth century, later another pagan celebration greatly influenced the many Christmas customs practiced today. That festival was the Teutonic feast of Yule (from the Norse word for "wheel," signifying the cycle of the year). It was also known as the Twelve Nights, being celebrated from Dec. 25 to Jan. 6.

This festival was based on the supposed mythological warfare between the forces of nature—specifically winter (called the ice giant), which signified death, vs. the sun god, representing life. The winter solstice marked the turning point: Up until then the ice giant was at his zenith of power; after that the sun god began to prevail.

"As Christianity spread to northern Europe, it met with the observance of another pagan festival held in December in honour of the sun. This time it was the Yule-feast of the Norsemen, which lasted for twelve days. During this time log-fires were burnt to assist the revival of the sun. Shrines and other sacred places were decorated with such greenery as holly, ivy, and bay, and it was an occasion for feasting and drinking.

"Equally old was the practice of the Druids, the caste of priests among the Celts of ancient France, Britain and Ireland, to decorate their temples with mistletoe, the fruit of the oak-tree which they considered sacred. Among the German tribes the oak-tree was sacred to Odin, their god of war, and they sacrificed to it until St Boniface, in the eighth century, persuaded them to exchange it for the Christmas tree, a young fir-tree adorned in honour of the Christ child ... It was the German immigrants who took the custom to America" (L.W. Cowie and John Selwyn Gummer, The Christian Calendar, 1974, p.22).

Instead of worshipping the sun god, converts were told to worship the Son of God. The focus of the holiday subtly changed, but the traditional pagan customs and practices remained fundamentally unchanged. Old religious customs involving holly, ivy, mistletoe and evergreen trees were given invented "Christian" meanings. We should keep in mind that Jesus Christ warns us to beware of things that masquerade as something they are not (Matthew 7:15; compare Isaiah 5:20; 2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

The roots of modern customs

Many of the other trappings of Christmas are merely carryovers from ancient celebrations.

"Santa Claus" is an American corruption of the Dutch form "San Nicolaas," a figure brought to America by the early Dutch colonists (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition, Vol. 19, p. 649, "Nicholas, St."). This name, in turn, stems from St. Nicholas, bishop of the city of Myra in southern Asia Minor, a Catholic saint honored by the Greeks and the Latins on Dec. 6.

How, we might ask, did a bishop from the sunny Mediterranean coast of Turkey come to be associated with a red-suited man who lives at the north pole and rides in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer?

Knowing what we have already learned about the ancient pre-Christian origins of Christmas, we shouldn't be surprised to learn that Santa Claus is nothing but a figure recycled from ancient beliefs tied in with pagan midwinter festivals.

The trappings associated with Santa Claus—his fur-trimmed clothing, sleigh and reindeer—reveal his origin from the cold climates of the far North. Some sources trace him to the ancient Northern European gods Woden and Thor, from which the days of the week Wednesday (Woden's day) and Thursday (Thor's day) get their designations (Earl and Alice Count, 4000 Years of Christmas, 1997, pp. 56-64). Others trace him even farther back in time to the Roman god Saturn (honored at the
winter Saturnalia festival) and the Greek god Silenus (Walsh, pp. 70-71).

What about other common customs and symbols associated with Christmas? Where did they originate? "On the Roman New Year (January 1), houses were decorated with greenery and lights, and gifts were given to children and the poor. To these observances were added the German and Celtic Yule rites ... Food and good fellowship, the Yule log and Yule cakes, greenery and fir trees, gifts and greetings all commemorated different aspects of this festive season. Fires and lights, symbols of warmth and lasting life, have always been associated with the winter festival, both pagan and Christian" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, Micropaedia, Vol. 2, p. 903, "Christmas").

"In midwinter, the idea of rebirth and fertility was tremendously important. In the snows of winter, the evergreen was a symbol of the life that would return in the spring, so evergreens were used for decoration ... Light was important in dispelling the growing darkness of the solstice, so a Yule log was lighted with the remains of the previous year's log ... As many customs lost their religious reasons for being, they passed into the realm of superstition, becoming good luck traditions and eventually merely customs without rationale. Thus the mistletoe was no longer worshiped but became eventually an excuse for rather nonreligious activities" (Del Re, p. 18).

"Christmas gifts themselves remind us of the presents that were exchanged in Rome during the Saturnalia. In Rome, it might be added, the presents usually took the form of wax tapers and dolls—the latter being in their turn a survival of the human sacrifices once offered to Saturn. It is a queer thought that in our Christmas presents we are preserving under another form one of the most savage customs of our barbarian ancestors!" (Walsh, p. 67).

When we see these customs perpetuated today in Christmas observance, we can have no doubt of this holiday's origin. Christmas is a diverse collection of pagan forms of worship overlaid with a veneer of Christianity.

Accommodating a pagan populace

How, we should ask, did these pagan customs become a widely accepted part of Christianity? We should first understand what a strong hold these celebrations and customs had on the people of those early centuries. Tertullian, a Catholic writer of the late second and early third century, lamented the fact that the pagans of his day were far more faithful to their beliefs than were the compromising Christians who were happily joining in the Roman midwinter festival that eventually evolved into what is now Christmas:

"By us [Christians], ...the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and Matronalia are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro, new year's day presents are made with din, and banquets are celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their religion, who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians" (Tertullian in De Idolatria, quoted by Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, 1959, p. 93).

It wasn't long before such non-Christian rites and practices were assimilated into a new church religious holiday supposedly celebrating Christ's birth. William Walsh describes this process and the rationalization behind it: "This was no mere accident. It was a necessary measure at a time when the new religion [Christianity] was forcing itself upon a deeply superstitious people. In order to reconcile fresh converts to the new faith, and to make the breaking of old ties as painless as possible, these relics of paganism were retained under modified forms ...

"Thus we find that when Pope Gregory [540-604] sent Saint Augustine as a missionary to convert Anglo-Saxon England he directed that so far as possible the saint should accommodate the new and strange Christian rites to the heathen ones with which the natives had been familiar from their birth.

"For example, he advised Saint Augustine to allow his converts on certain festivals to eat and kill a great number of oxen to the glory of God the Father, as formerly they had done this in honor of [their gods] ... On the very Christmas after his arrival in England Saint Augustine baptized many thousands of converts and permitted their usual December celebration under the new name and with the new meaning" (p. 61).

Gregory permitted such importation of pagan religious practices on the grounds that when dealing with "obdurate minds it is impossible to cut off everything at once" (Sansom, p. 30).

Tragically, Christianity never accomplished the task of cutting off everything pagan. According to Owen Chadwick, former professor of history at Cambridge University, the Romans "kept the winter solstice with a feast of drunkenness and riot. The Christians thought that they could bring a better meaning into that feast. They tried to persuade their flocks not to drink or eat too much, and to keep the feast more austerely —but without success " (A History of Christianity, 1995, p. 24).

Early contention over Christmas

In the beginning, Christians were opposed to Christmas. Some of the earliest controversy erupted over whether Jesus' birthday should be celebrated at all.

"As early as A.D. 245, the Church father Origen was proclaiming it heathenish to celebrate Christ's birthday as if He were merely a temporal ruler when His spiritual nature should be the main concern. This view was echoed throughout the centuries, but found strong, widespread advocacy only with the rise of Protestantism. To these serious-minded, sober clerics, the celebration of Christmas flew in the face of all they believed. Drunken revelry on Christmas! The day was not even known to be Christ's birthday. It was merely an excuse to continue the customs of pagan Saturnalia" (Del Re, p. 20).

The Encyclopaedia Britannica adds: "The [church] Fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Epiphanius, contended that Christmas was a copy of a pagan celebration" (15th edition, Macropaedia, Vol. 4, p. 499, "Christianity").

The decision to celebrate Christ's birth on December 25 was far from universally accepted. "Christians of Armenia and Syria accused the Christians of Rome of sun worship for celebrating Christmas on December 25 ... Pope Leo the Great in the fifth century tried to remove certain practices at Christmas which he considered in no way different from sun worship" (Robert Myers, Celebrations: The Complete Book of American Holidays, 1972, p. 310).

Indeed, of all times of the year suggested as the birth of Christ, December 25 could not have been the date.

Again, the idea of celebrating Christ's birthday on any date was initially problematic—to say nothing of celebrating it on a date derived from paganism.

"To the early Christians the idea of celebrating the birthday of a religious figure would have seemed at best peculiar, at worst blasphemous. Being born into this world was nothing to celebrate. What mattered was leaving this world and entering the next in a condition pleasing to God.

"When early Christians associated a feast day with a specific person, such as a bishop or martyr, it was usually the date of the person's death ... If you wanted to search the New Testament world for peoples who attached significance to birthdays, your search would quickly narrow to pagans. The Romans celebrated the birthdays of the Caesars, and most unchristian Mediterranean religions attached importance to the natal feasts of a pantheon of supernatural figures.

"If Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, and his purpose in coming was anything like what is supposed, then in celebrating his birthday each year Christians do violence, not honor, to his memory. For in celebrating a birthday at all, we sustain exactly the kind of tradition his coming is thought to have been designed to cast down" (Flynn, p. 42).

Christmas: a banned celebration

In England "the Protestants found their own quieter ways of celebrating, in calm and meditation," while "the strict Puritans refused to celebrate at all ...The Pilgrims in Massachusetts made a point of working on Christmas as on any other day. On June 3, 1647, Parliament established punishments for observing Christmas and certain other holidays. This policy was reaffirmed in 1652" (Del Re, p. 20).

Even colonial America considered Christmas more of a raucous revelry than a religious occasion: "So tarnished, in fact, was its reputation in colonial America that celebrating Christmas was banned in Puritan New England, where the noted minister Cotton Mather described yuletide merrymaking as ‘an affront unto the grace of God'" (Jeffery Sheler, "In Search of Christmas," U.S. News and World Report, Dec. 23, 1996, p. 56).

The reason Christmas has survived and grown into such a popular holiday—being observed by 96 percent of Americans and almost all nations, even atheistic ones (Sheler, p. 56)—is because of economic factors.

Christmas evaluated

We cannot escape that Christmas is rooted in ancient customs and religious practices that had nothing to do with Christianity and the Bible. Tom Flynn summarizes the issue: "An enormous number of traditions we now associate with Christmas have their roots in pre-Christian pagan religious traditions. Some of these have social, sexual, or cosmological connotations that might lead educated, culturally sensitive moderns to discard the traditions once they have understood their roots more clearly" (p. 19).

Originally envisioned as a way to ease converts' transition from heathen worship to Christianity, in more recent years the holiday's observance has been driven by economic forces. The Encyclopaedia Britannica observes that the traditional Christian holidays have "undergone a process of striking desacralization and—especially Christmas—commercialization. The Christological foundation of Christmas was replaced by the myth of Santa Claus" (15th edition, Macropaedia,
Vol. 4, p. 499, "Christianity").

Even with its failings, Christmas remains an entrenched tradition. Although some recognize the intrinsic paganism of the holiday, they believe people are free to establish their own days of worship. Others cling to the naïve and biblically insupportable belief that paganism's most popular celebrations have been won over by Christianity and therefore are acceptable to God.

Human reasoning aside, we need to consider God's opinion about such celebrations. We need to look into God's Word to see how He views mixing pagan practices and customs with worshiping Him.

Please Read post: Intro for Christmas Exposed

What's Wrong With Our Human Nature?

The Bible represents Satan as the master manipulator of human nature. Our weakness combined with the devil's influence has led the whole world into sin (Revelation 12:9). Paul explains that "the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel" (2 Corinthians 4:4, NIV).

Paul reminds Christ's faithful disciples that "you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others" (Ephesians 2:2-3).

Because of Satan's deceptions and the sinful tendencies of human nature, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). We must understand, however, that the devil cannot force us to sin. He simply influences us through our fleshly weaknesses. But several major areas of our fleshly nature are easily manipulated by Satan.

First, our selfish, fleshly desires often get us into trouble: "Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God" (Galatians 5:19-21, NRSV).

Paul graphically describes the effect fleshly desires have on human behavior. "Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another . . .

"Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

"Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.

"They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them" (Romans 1:24-32, NIV).

Second, our natural deviousness, including self- deception, is a major weakness of the fleshly mind. "The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse—who can understand it? I the L ord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings" (Jeremiah 17:9-10, NRSV).

We naturally look for ways to justify our lusts, our sinful desires, and the behavior that arises from them. We deceive ourselves into believing that, since our desires are natural, they are not so bad after all. But God's Word reminds us that "there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death" (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25). Death is the end result of living that wrong way (Romans 6:23).

Third, we have a natural tendency to resent having our fleshly desires limited by rules, even God's rules. Paul explains: "For those whose lives are according to the flesh think about the things of the flesh, but those whose lives are according to the Spirit, about the things of the Spirit. For the mind-set of the flesh is death, but the mind-set of the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind-set of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit itself to God's law, for it is unable to do so. Those whose lives are in [that is, dominated by] the flesh are unable to please God" (Romans 8:5-8, Holman Christian Standard Bible).

These and other fleshly weaknesses are what we call human nature. Satan takes advantage of our weak and greedy nature by persuading us to rely even more on our emotions, needs and wants than we normally would. But we play our part. Without the positive influence of God's Spirit, we are simply not inclined to live according to God's instructions.

Therefore, Paul warns: "For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God" (Romans 8:13-14).

Creating Quality Time

To increase the opportunities for quality communication—the kind where a parent and child can truly share heartfelt emotions and concerns in a trusting relationship—consider the following ideas:

For a young child who is going to bed at night, spend some time quietly whispering in his or her ear about the importance of godly, moral actions. Praise the child for his or her good behavior that day. The time before children go to sleep is often a reflective period when they will reveal their thoughts and ask important questions.

Even teens and young adults will sometimes want to talk about the important issues in their lives just before going to bed. While whispering in their ears is no longer necessary, having the talk is. Wise parents won't forgo this opportunity when it comes.

For older children, it may be necessary to first spend some time doing an activity the child enjoys. This is a case of priming the pump; parents spend the time with their children showing them that they love them, and then, once assured of their parents' love, children share what they are thinking.

Parents have to be careful to respect older children's privacy. It doesn't generally work very well for parents to demand that a child reveal his or her emotions and thoughts. And sometimes children have no great secret thoughts about life to share. Quality time is natural and occurs because of trust and respect.

Target: Jerusalem

Locked in a battle over the Holy City
Acticle by: Ron Fraser

This is not a story you are going to see on the nightly news. Yet it is a huge story of the moment that will soon dominate all news media.

Iran and the Vatican State—representing two great religious movements: pan-Islamism and Roman Catholicism—and the most powerful state in Europe, Germany, are gearing up for a titanic battle for the possession of the “city of peace”—Jerusalem.

Besides those two globally dominant religions claiming entitlement to that city, a third does as well: world Jewry.

This is an age-old battle. In modern times it has waged since World War ii, when Islam, under the Ottoman Turks, lost Jerusalem, and since Kaiser Wilhelm was denied its possession by British Imperial forces occupying Palestine, freeing the city from past Islamic dominance and the prospect of a Teutonic-Roman takeover.

Vatican Vision

The recapture of Jerusalem has burned as a fervent desire in Vatican hearts since the days of the great Crusades, initiated by Pope Urban ii in a.d. 1095.

Since the end of World War ii, and especially since the 1962 Vatican ii congress, Rome has worked toward this goal. Through diplomacy, primarily employing its excellent international intelligence network and by exercising more open dialogue with its wayward Protestant and Orthodox daughters, it has sought to achieve a bridgehead in the drive for the universal conversion of mankind with Jerusalem as its spiritual capital.

At the same time, since the Israelis withdrew from the territories they occupied in 1967, Islam has chosen the path of jihadist war through terrorism to achieve similar goals. Extremist Islamic movements intent on “holy war” have been blowing up airplanes, blowing up embassies, blowing up their enemies by blowing themselves up in their midst, in their efforts to achieve the universal salvation of mankind in the name of Allah and their prophet Mohammad. They take the future seizure of Jerusalem as a given.

Recently the pope upped the ante in his crusade via his coded anti-Islam verbal salvos. He received a swift, violent Muslim response: the slaughter of Roman Catholics celebrating mass in a cathedral in Baghdad.

Check the sequence of events.

First came Pope Benedict’s verbal outburst in his controversial speech at Regensburg, Bavaria, in September 2006. Careful analysis of that speech reveals that Benedict was accusing Islam of being an irrational faith. Indeed, he provoked great wrath from Islamic clerics by quoting a dialogue between a Byzantine Emperor Manuel ii Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam: “Show me just what Mohammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

The stab at Islam was not lost on the religious and political leaders of modern Persia—Iran—nor on their terrorizing lackeys!

Pope Benedict is known for his brilliant intellect. This was a well-thought-out speech, prepared in advance, not off the cuff. The choice of Manuel ii’s statement was both deliberate and calculated—calculated to get a reaction!

And what a reaction it received! Public demonstrations broke out in Turkey, in Iran, in the Islamic communities in Britain and on the European continent. Effigies of the pope were burned in the streets. Al Qaeda called for the pope’s death.

Ever since, Islamic extremists have increasingly targeted Christians—mainly Roman Catholics—in the Middle East, especially within Iran’s western neighbor, Iraq. UN statistics show that, before the Iraq War began in 2003, Baghdad was home to 1.5 million Christians of various sects. Today that number is fewer than 500,000—mostly because of those who have fled religious persecution.

Extraordinary Synod

This past October, the pope called an extraordinary synod of archbishops together in Rome to consider the fate of the church in the Middle East. It was a watershed event in the pope’s program for evangelizing the world. For Benedict, the fulcrum around which his global project revolves is—as it has always been with the Vatican down through the ages—Jerusalem. To this end, the Vatican is ramping up its involvement in the Middle East peace process.

This synod was the platform the Vatican used to further emphasize its coded verbal crusade against Islam.

In his homily at the close of the synod on October 24, Pope Benedict recalled, “During the work of the synod what was often underlined was the need to offer the gospel anew to people who do not know it very well or who have even moved away from the church. What was often evoked was the need for a new evangelization for the Middle East as well.” To Islamic extremists, that statement would have to have been like waving a red flag in front of a bull!

To top it off, Benedict promised that the theme for the next synod in 2012 would be “the new evangelization for the transmission of the Christian faith.” He explained, “At any time and in any place—also in the Middle East today—the church is present and works to welcome each human being ….”

Those are crusading words—words that offer a powerful challenge to any competing religion that has its own missionary zeal to convert the world—which, very obviously, Islam does!

It was no coincidence that, on October 31, just one week later, masked Islamist gunmen burst through the doors of a Catholic cathedral in Baghdad and slaughtered 58 Roman Catholics attending Sunday evening mass. Days later, follow-up attacks occurred in Christian neighborhoods in Iraq.

The pope had his answer to his latest missionary challenge to Islam!

Historic Comparison

Compare these events with the spark that ignited Rome’s earliest crusade to capture Jerusalem. In a.d. 1077, the Seljuk Turks massed in Jerusalem and slaughtered around 3,000 Catholic pilgrims. The attacks continued on Catholics over the next decade and a half. In 1095, Pope Urban ii cried “enough” and challenged the knights of Europe at the Council of Clermont to a crusading battle to seize Jerusalem and wreak revenge on the Islamic hordes: “The Turks and Arabs have attacked our brethren in the East and have conquered the territory of Romania (the Greek Empire) as far as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont …. They have killed and captured many and have destroyed the churches and devastated the [Roman] Empire …. On this account I … persuade all people of whatever rank, foot soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians ….”

Thus was the First Crusade enkindled.

Nine centuries later, another Islamic horde pushes at the doors of Jerusalem and Rome, threatening to overtake much of Europe by mass migration from the Middle East and to push the tiny nation of Israel into the sea. Hidden among the émigrés are hundreds of extremist Islamists bent on crusading jihad warfare against Christendom. In the Middle East, once again, Islamists slaughter Roman Catholics.

When will the pope move beyond his war of words?

The Vatican may well be able to boast of a billion-plus adherents to the Roman Catholic faith—yet crusades are fought by bloodletting battles. It is to the Vatican’s traditional protector, Germany, that the popes have looked as Rome’s defender since the time of Charlemagne.

Believe it or not, your Bible prophesies that Rome will yet again look to Germany for support in one final crusade to eliminate the threat of Islam and recapture the real prize in the process—Jerusalem.

The Pope and the Baron

In the early Crusades, the Franks were at the forefront. It is interesting to note that a bright, charismatic young Frank, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Germany’s current defense minister, has become the driving force behind the effort to drastically upgrade the German armed forces. In the process he has made it clear that he seeks the amalgamation of nato with a combined European military force to produce a battle group of a size and with the nuclear power potential to match all comers!

This same young Frankish aristocrat traces his lineage back 900 years to the First Crusade! His family has been dedicated supporters of the popes down through the centuries.

Recently on a balmy Roman autumnal evening, the pope witnessed a stunning performance of Verdi’s Requiem Mass led by a fellow Bavarian, conductor Enoch zu Guttenberg, father of Germany’s minister of defense, at the Paul vi Hall in the Vatican.

Among the audience was an inveterate Vatican watcher, Dr. Robert Moynihan. He was moved by the uniqueness of the event to make an intriguing observation in respect of this particular performance. Referring to “the political overtones of the event,” Moynihan noted that “[t]he concert had perhaps unintentional political overtones because the son of the conductor, right now Germany’s minister of defense, Karl-Theodor Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg, 38, has just become, according to polls, the single most popular politician in Germany. This means the younger Guttenberg may have a real chance, and soon, to become the next chancellor of Germany after Angela Merkel” (Inside the Vatican, Oct. 19, 2010).

Meanwhile, across the Tyrolean border in neighboring Germany, it was as though the whole country was seized with Guttenberg fever. One German newspaper termed it “Guttenberg Hysteria.” Literally every leading German newspaper and magazine has carried a major story on the Guttenbergs since the end of summer. Germans are simply enraptured with the baron and his wife.

But what will be most intriguing to readers of the Trumpet is the following statement made by Dr. Moynihan: “The fact is that this concert for the German pope was conducted by the father of the man who may soon head the German government.

“This at least suggests a strengthened connection between Berlin and Rome, or between the two men, should they come into contact in the future as world leaders” (ibid., emphasis mine throughout).

For decades we have been looking out for two dominant leaders to come to the fore in Europe: one, a powerful political leader from Germany; the other, an influential religious leader from Rome. This power pair is prophesied to dominate the final rise of a European-based empire, a reincarnation of the old Holy Roman Empire.

Watch for further developments that may suddenly propel this duo into the spotlight! The fact that one of the most astute watchers of Vatican politics is prepared to suggest a future linkage between Pope Benedict xvi and fellow Bavarian Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a Frankish baron of the Holy Roman Empire, is most intriguing indeed.

Another Target of the Vatican

One other dramatic episode emanated from that recent synod in Rome. What was most profound in relation to the “peace” spoken of there was the stance the Vatican took on the tiny, embattled, fighting-for-its-own-survival, Judaic nation of Israel.

Reuters reported that, in their concluding statement, the bishops declared that “Israel cannot use the biblical concept of a Promised Land or a chosen people to justify … territorial claims …” (Oct. 23, 2010). When Greek-Melchite Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros was asked about this passage at a news conference, he responded, “We Christians cannot speak about the Promised Land for the Jewish people. There is no longer a chosen people. All men and women of all countries have become the chosen people. The concept of the Promised Land cannot be used as a base for the justification of the return of Jews to Israel …. The justification of Israel’s occupation of the land of Palestine cannot be based on sacred scriptures.”

In the synod’s concluding message, the Vatican reiterated a call it has made before: that Jerusalem come to have a special status that “respects its particular character” as a city sacred not only to Jews, but also to Christians and Muslims. Though it briefly acknowledged the Jews’ need to enjoy peace within internationally recognized borders, the document spent far more words on the Palestinians’ plight. It bemoaned their “suffering the consequences of the Israeli occupation: the lack of freedom of movement, the wall of separation and the military checkpoints, the political prisoners, the demolition of homes, the disturbance of socio-economic life and the thousands of refugees.” The imbalance of the Vatican’s perspective on the situation of Jerusalem, the Jews and Palestinians was obvious.

Peel aside the sophistry, and the truth is plain: The Vatican is clearly biased against the Jews and Israel’s birthright claim to the city of Jerusalem and the biblical land of Israel, which were gifted by God to the nation of Israel in perpetuity. This, from a religion that claims to speak for all Christendom—indeed, claiming, albeit falsely, that its own religious roots lie in the birth of the land of Israel.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch said it all in a recent speech at an Anti-Defamation League dinner, the text of which was printed in Commentary magazine under the headline, “The Aim Is to Make Israel a Pariah”: “Now the war has entered a new phase. This is the soft war that seeks to isolate Israel by delegitimizing it. The battleground is everywhere: the media … multinational organizations … ngos. In this war, the aim is to make Israel a pariah.

“The result is the curious situation we have today: Israel becomes increasingly ostracized, while Iran—a nation that has made no secret of wishing Israel’s destruction—pursues nuclear weapons loudly, proudly, and without apparent fear of rebuke.”

War Against the Jews

Murdoch, who received an award from Pope John Paul ii for his contributions to the media, made no reference to the Vatican’s stance on the nation of Israel, his statement coming before this latest startling declaration of the Vatican Synod on the Church in the Middle East.

But he did condemn the European Union for its blatant bias against Israel, a bias that is feeding the rising anti-Zionism across the Continent: “We saw a recent outbreak when a European commissioner trade minister declared that peace in the Middle East is impossible because of the Jewish lobby in America. Here’s how he put it: ‘There is indeed a belief—it’s difficult to describe it otherwise—among most Jews that they are right. And it’s not so much whether these are religious Jews or not. Lay Jews also share the same belief that they are right. So it is not easy to have, even with moderate Jews, a rational discussion about what is actually happening in the Middle East.’

“This minister did not suggest the problem was any specific Israeli policy. The problem, as he defined it, is the nature of the Jews.”

This is the same argument that former German central banker and politician Thilo Sarrazin makes in his bestselling book Germany Does Away With Itself to underpin his thesis that Jews are unsuitable for residence in Germany.

Murdoch also hit out at the anti-Zionism prevalent in Islamic communities in Europe, and the degree of tolerance that Islamic-inspired anti-Zionist attacks are given by European authorities: “In Europe today, some of the most egregious attacks on Jewish people, Jewish symbols and Jewish houses of worship have come from the Muslim population.

“Unfortunately, far from making clear that such behavior will not be tolerated, too often the official response [suggests] Jews and Israel were partly to blame themselves.

“When Europe’s political leaders do not stand up to the thugs, they lend credence to the idea that Israel is the source of all the world’s problems—and they guarantee more ugliness. If that is not anti-Semitism, I don’t know what is.

“The world of 2010 is not the world of the 1930s. The threats Jews face today are different. But these threats are real. These threats are soaked in an ugly language familiar to anyone old enough to remember World War ii. And these threats cannot be addressed until we see them for what they are: part of an ongoing war against the Jews.”

The reality is that this “war against the Jews” is just one part of an insidiously spreading anti-Semitic mindset—one that extends out against the Anglo-Saxons. For unbeknown to the greater part of society is the fact that the Promised Land was gifted to the nations of Israel—plural! For proof of just who these nations are, request our eye-opening book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.

The Promised Land

The Eternal Creator of humankind promised the territory from the Nile River to the Euphrates to the descendants of Abraham, through his son Isaac and, in turn, the descendants of Jacob (Genesis 15:18-21; 28:13; Exodus 23:31; Deuteronomy 1:8). These are the true Israelites. Believe it or not, they include 11 other nations in addition to the Jewish people.

Since the Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35)—despite what Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros falsely maintains—and the Eternal God never changes (Malachi 3:6), His promise of the perpetual inheritance of that piece of Middle Eastern real estate by Israel is binding to this day and beyond.

It is certainly not conditional on the utterances of the Vatican. In fact, Israel is least accountable to that particular Babylonish institution, of all institutions.

Those who seek to refute the claim on the Promised Land by Israel will one day have to swallow their own words. Jerusalem is destined to be the capital of a new society, a whole new civilization to be established by the very King of Salem, the King of kings, Jesus Christ Himself (Hebrews 7:2; 1 Timothy 6:15). It will remain the capital of that globe-girdling kingdom for over a thousand years. Then it will become the very site of the eternal throne of Almighty God Himself! (Revelation 21:1-3).

Those who falsely claim that “there is no longer a chosen people” are refuted by Scripture! The very “peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9) chosen by God to do so will soon claim their rightful inheritance of the Promised Land—and, not long after, the whole world will learn to truly rejoice in the reality of that inheritance!

It’s time to more closely watch Iran as it continues to aggressively push its jihadist foreign-policy agenda against Rome, against a German-led Europe and against the embattled Judaic nation of Israel.

It’s time to more closely watch Germany’s growing exertion of its national power, especially in militaristic terms, and to watch for its coming blitzkrieg response to this push from the biblical “king of the south,” Iran!

And it’s time to watch, ever more closely, the city of Jerusalem. This “city of peace” has endured centuries of warfare, and yet again it faces being torn apart by two great competing religions in a great new crusade for its possession, propelled by the resurrected power of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.

But more, as you watch, watch in hope for what is prophesied to follow: the establishment of a new city of Jerusalem that will last for over a thousand years—then the ultimate vision of hope, the new Jerusalem! That city will be one of universal peace, the future capital of the universe! It will last forever, on into an eternal future of scintillating peace, joy and happiness under the supreme rule of the eternal Father of all mankind!

The Week in Review - Dec. 10 - 17, 2010

Japan ditches pacifism, the Greeks hit the streets, crisis spreads to Belgium, and the Philippines kowtows to China.

Middle East

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fired his foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, on Monday, replacing him with the country’s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, as the interim foreign minister. While a Foreign Ministry spokesman said the sacking would not affect the country’s foreign policy, Stratfor reports that the move indicates a rift within Iran’s ruling elite over the nuclear issue. Mottaki was fired abruptly while on a trip to Senegal, just days after the December 6-7 nuclear talks in Geneva between Tehran and world powers. Some believe that Mottaki’s firing could be related to the release of classified U.S. diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks. “Clearly, Iranian foreign policy has failed here and someone needed to pay the price for it,” said Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council in Washington. Political insiders say that there have been fundamental divisions between Mottaki and Ahmadinejad since the 2005 election, but Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had until now refused to allow the president to replace the foreign minister.

A terrorist attack on a Shiite mosque in Iran on Wednesday killed 39 people and injured more than 100 in the worst confrontation between the Iranian government and Jundallah, a Sunni militant group, in three years. The two suicide bombings, carried out during a Shiite religious ceremony, were claimed by Jundallah rebels, who said they were retaliation for the execution of their leader in June. The Iranian government apparently blamed an unnamed intelligence service for masterminding the attack and accused the U.S. and Israel of supporting Jundallah. “America and the Zionist regime (Israel) try to create discord among Shiites and Sunnis by orchestrating such bombings,” Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said. “They should know that such measures will not go unanswered.” America recently listed Jundallah as a terrorist group in a move seen by analysts as a concession to Iran in hopes of reaching an agreement on the balance of power in the region and resolving the nuclear standoff.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has revised his succession plan due to the unpopularity of his son Gamal among the military establishment and the ruling National Democratic Party, according to Stratfor sources. The new consensus candidate for a possible successor to Mubarak, who is in ailing health, is former air force chief and current minister of civil aviation Ahmed Shafiq. This choice may satisfy the “old guard,” who don’t want liberal economic changes in the country that the new guard, which Gamal represents, is calling for. But if this plan eventuates, it may also create a larger backlash against the autocratic regime.

The European Union on Monday reaffirmed its readiness to recognize a Palestinian state but stopped short of recognizing such a state outright. EU foreign ministers released a statement expressing “regret” at Israel’s rejection of a new construction freeze and labeling Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria as an “obstacle to peace.” One foreign minister said that recognition of a Palestinian state was under consideration but that “at this stage it’s too early.” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has urged the EU to take steps toward recognizing a Palestinian state based upon pre-1967 borders—lands occupied by Jordan between 1948 and 1967. While Europe in some ways may appear to be an objective mediator in the Middle East peace process, its actions consistently belie this notion.

Europe

European leaders agreed to amend the Lisbon Treaty to create a permanent eurozone rescue fund at a meeting in Brussels on December 16-17. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the agreement demonstrated a “big piece of solidarity between the states that share the euro.” Stratfor has a different perspective, saying, “Amending the Lisbon Treaty in order to establish a permanent rescue mechanism will complete Berlin’s first phase of redesigning the European Union” (December 15).

Belgium’s AA+ credit rating is likely to fall according to ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, signaling that the financial crisis could be beginning to spread to the heart of Europe. Moody’s warned that Spain and Greece could also have their ratings cut. Standard & Poor’s lowered Belgium’s outlook to negative on December 14. Belgium has not had a government for six months, and is even at risk of splitting up. Belgium’s debt stands at 96 percent of its gross domestic product. The country needs to sort out its deficit, yet without a functional government there is no way it can. Investors fear that with such weak leadership, Belgium will not be able to put together austerity measures tough enough to solve its problems. Stratfor also highlighted Austria as another potential problem. It doesn’t have the national debt that Belgium has—its debt is only 68 percent of gdp—but its banks could be in trouble after over-indulging in the central European credit bubble. Stratfor points out that Belgium and Austria lack the resources that large countries have to tackle their problems. A bigger nation can force its own financial sector to help it out of trouble. Belgium and Austria don’t have that option—they have to go to foreign investors for money. “In good times this is irrelevant,” writes Stratfor, “but when money gets tight and investors get scared, an investor stampede can crush a state’s finances overnight” (December 14). The eurozone, in its common form, cannot handle economic crises in Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Austria. These looming crises will lead to a complete revolution of Europe.

More riots hit Athens on December 15 as Greeks continue to rail against the country’s austerity measures. Between 20,000 and 100,000 (depending on whether you believe the police or the unions) marched through Athens during a 24-hour general strike. Rioters firebombed the Economics Ministry and threw Molotov cocktails, concrete and other projectiles at police. Around 20,000 also protested in Thessaloniki. The EU Observer reports: “The general strike itself has paralyzed the country: Flights are grounded, trains silent and ships stuck in harbors. Schools are closed, rubbish has not been collected, bank workers have been on strike since Tuesday and hospitals are providing minimal services only.” The UK, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Spain also hosted protests and demonstrations. The financial crisis continues to foment social unrest.

WikiLeaks cables from the U.S. Embassy in the Vatican released so far show the power and ambition the Catholic Church has on the world scene. A December 2009 cable on EU voting patterns at the United Nations said that “The Vatican observer was as always active and influential behind the scenes.” A July 2001 cable, providing background on the pope’s visit to the U.S., was titled “The Vatican—The Supranational Power.” “The Vatican is one of very few sovereign entities that have presence and reach in virtually every country of the world,” the cable said. “Although its sovereignty is over limited territory, Vatican teaching and policies can influence the over 1 billion adherents of the Roman Catholic Church.” The same cable also talked about the Vatican’s goal to create a united Europe: “The Vatican would like to see a unified, Christian (i.e. Catholic) Europe. And therefore should be expected to intensify its dialogue with the leading Protestant groups in Germany and Scandinavia. The Vatican will also continue attempts to engage the Russian church and the ecumenical patriarch in Istanbul in an attempt to heal the Latin/Orthodox rift.” While these leaks are not revolutionary, they confirm what the Trumpet has been saying for a long time.

The prime minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi, was an organized crime boss and trafficked in human organs in the late 1990s, according to a draft report published by the Council of Europe on December 14. The report accused Western nations of ignoring these crimes. Thaçi led the Drenica Group that came to dominate the Kosovo Liberation Army (kla) which fought Serbia. “Thaçi and these other ‘Drenica Group’ members are consistently named as ‘key players’ in intelligence reports on Kosovo’s mafia-like structures of organized crime,” said the report. The report supports claims by former prosecutor at The Hague Carla del Ponte that the kla kidnapped Serbs and stole their organs. Del Ponte said she had been prevented from investigating the crime. The report supports what the Trumpet has being saying for years—that the U.S. succumbed to German pressure and backed the wrong side in the Balkans. See our July 27, 2008, article “Karadzic and the Anti-Serbs” for more information on the anti-Serbian propaganda out there.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi survived a no-confidence vote in both the Senate and chamber amid riots in Rome on December 14. He missed being ousted by the lower house by three votes. Gianfranco Fini, Berlusconi’s former ally, triggered the vote by leaving the government to create his own parliamentary group. Three of Fini’s men voted for the government, keeping Berlusconi in power. Ushers had to step in to stop fights breaking out as the voting took place. So Berlusconi is still in power, but he is two votes short in the chamber of the absolute majority needed to guarantee that he can pass legislation.

The European Parliament finally approved the European Union’s budget for 2011 on December 15. The budget had been stalled as meps wanted more say in Europe’s financial planning. The budget accommodates member states’ demands for austerity by increasing the budget by 2.91 percent instead of 5.9 percent (for an institution that is always gobbling more money, this kind of adjustment counts as saving). In return, EU nation leaders agreed to present proposals for the EU to raise its own money in June 2011. Watch for EU to try to gain the power to tax the nations under it as it grows toward becoming a superstate.

The U.S. lost interest in rooting out Nazis after 1946 and even protected some Nazi war criminals according to a report published by the U.S. National Archives on December 10. The report, based on information declassified in 2005, concluded: “[T]he issue of capturing and punishing war criminals became less important over time.” It stated that “tracking and punishing war criminals were not high among the Army’s priorities in late 1946.” German intelligence declassified earlier in the year also showed that West Germany’s intelligence organization contained many Nazis and war criminals. The reports confirm that postwar Germany was never thoroughly de-Nazified.

Asia

On December 10, the Philippines joined the China-led boycott against the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony which honored an imprisoned Chinese dissident. China’s beef was over the Nobel Committee’s decision to award this year’s peace prize to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese activist who waged a 20-year campaign to bring what the Nobel Committee called “fundamental human rights” to China. Beijing, which sees Liu’s work as a challenge to the Communist Party’s self-appointed right to rule the nation, imprisoned Liu as a dissident in December 2009, and lashed out at the Nobel Committee, and the West in general, calling the decision to award him the prize “an anti-China farce.” In the lead-up to the award ceremony, Beijing announced that any nation that sent a representative to the event would face “consequences.” Most of the 17 other nations that heeded China’s calls to boycott the ceremony were the usual suspects: regimes like Iran and Venezuela that share China’s disdain for Western human rights pressure. But the Philippines is supposed to be a champion of democracy and an ally of the West. The Manila Times blasted President Benigno Aquino iii, saying he made a “painful sacrifice” of the Philippines’ human rights image in order to please Beijing for security and economic reasons. Manila’s kowtowing to Beijing came only three days after the Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff traveled to Beijing for high-level meetings that culminated in a military logistics deal between the Philippines and China. Manila is beginning to read the writing on the wall and is positioning the Philippines for the inevitable demise of U.S. foreign policy in Asia.

Japan is poised to shift toward a more assertive military stance involving new advanced weaponry, boosted cooperation with its ally nations, and deployable rapid-response units, Japanese media announced on Monday. Tokyo has considered such a sweeping shift for some time, but rising tensions with China and North Korea have injected new urgency into the discussions. Japanese media reports say that the updated defense program guidelines, scheduled for release this month, will increase the country’s submarine fleet from 16 to 22, add advanced fighter jets to the air force, and will relocate troops from the faded northern threat of Russia to the intensifying threat of China to Japan’s south. The plan also calls for a review of Japan’s three non-nuclear principles, for a lifting of the nation’s arms export bans, and for defensive alliances with the U.S., India, Australia and South Korea. As the current trends persist, Japan’s military will continue to expand, and it will look less and less like a “self-defense” force. And although Japan’s expanding military is, at present, largely a response to threats from other Asian countries, Bible prophecy reveals that the militaries of China, Japan and other powers in the East will soon put aside their differences and unite.

Riots in Moscow and other Russian cities have demonstrated the need to tighten the reins of public order and to increase the power of police forces, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday. Putin’s comments followed a demonstration in Moscow by 5,000 thugs and racists which resulted in injuries for more than 30 people and raised questions about Moscow’s ability to deal with increasing xenophobia in Russia. Putin took the opportunity to lash out at liberals who have criticized him for squelching opposition protests with riot police. “The liberal community must understand the need for maintaining order,” Putin said. But many analysts suspect links between some Russian politicians and various nationalist groups, saying that government hawks might support nationalists in order to justify increases in Kremlin power, and to thwart attempts at opening up Russia’s political system. In late 2011, Russians will vote on a new parliament, and in March of 2012, they will elect a new president. Expect Putin to seek and win another presidential term.

Africa/Latin America

The WikiLeaks cables boosted Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe this week. One leak shows that Mugabe’s chief opponent, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, is a strong U.S. ally, often in touch with the U.S. Embassy. Liesl Louw-Vaudran of the Institute for Security Studies, based in South Africa, said, “For southern Africa, the WikiLeaks Zimbabwe revelations are most significant, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say they could destabilize Zimbabwe. … We are sitting with a very tense situation, very delicate, where we’ve got a dictator now for the last 25 years here in Africa, absolutely insistent that any opposition to him is being instigated by the West. He now has that on paper, and it is very dangerous.” The cables show Tsvangirai’s discussions with the U.S. on how to oust Mugabe—so Mugabe now knows exactly what his opponents are thinking. Some Zimbabwean officials have accused Tsvangirai of treason. The leaks also quote former U.S. Ambassador Christopher Dell saying that Tsvangirai is a “flawed figure, who is not readily open to advice, indecisive and with questionable judgment in selecting those around him.” The cables also inadvertently released the name of a member of Mugabe’s own party who was giving the U.S. information. The leaks redacted most instances of the individual’s name, but left it uncensored in one location. Now he could end up out of a job, in prison, or worse—dead. The cables have made a mess of America’s efforts to undermine a despotic regime that works closely with China. Politicians willing to turn against their despotic leaders are going to be even less likely to talk with the U.S. now.

Another leaked cable shows the scale of the violence and corruption surrounding Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond fields. “In a country filled with corrupt schemes, the diamond business in Zimbabwe is one of the dirtiest,” said one cable from November 2008. After one attack by government forces, a cable states that “over 200 bodies turned up at Mutare mortuaries. Many of those bodies arrived with fatal gunshot or dog-bite wounds and were tagged ‘bid Marange,’ or ‘brought in dead from Marange.’ The diamonds are sold to foreign merchants, “including Belgians, Israelis, Lebanese, Russians and South Africans who smuggle them out of the country for cutting and resale elsewhere.” The cable states: “The majority of the diamonds are smuggled to Dubai and sold at the Dubai Multi Commodities Center Authority. The highest quality diamonds are shipped to Belgium, Israel or South Africa for cutting.” The cables also supported claims that the head of Zimbabwe’s central bank, Gideon Gono, pocketed a great deal of money by buying diamonds with Zimbabwe dollars that he had just printed, and then being paid for them in U.S. dollars. The discovery of one of the world’s richest diamond fields should have been a blessing for the country. Instead, with its thoroughly corrupt government, it has been a curse.

On December 14, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez asked the nation’s Congress to give him special powers to decree laws without any input from the Congress for one year. The dictator used the excuse that he needed the power to deal with the damage left by floods and mudslides that destroyed thousands of homes. The real reason is probably the fact that the current legislature is full of Chávez’s cronies, and the one about to take office contains a much larger percentage of his opponents. Next year, he will no longer control the two thirds of the legislature necessary to pass some laws. If he is successful in gaining decree powers, this would be the fourth time that Chávez has been given these powers.

Venezuela received 1,800 shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles from Russia in 2009 according to UN arms control data, said a Washington Post article this week. The Post cites a missile expert from the Federation of American Scientists, Matt Schroeder, saying that the missiles are some of the most sophisticated in the world. “It’s the largest recorded transfer in the UN arms registry database in five years, at least,” he said. “There’s no state in Latin America of greater concern regarding leakage that has purchased so many missiles.” The UN’s database shows that from 2006 to 2008 Russia sold Venezuela 24 combat planes, 44 attack helicopters and 472 missiles and launchers. A State Department cable from Aug. 10, 2009, stated that Venezuela had spent “over $5 billion last year and growing” on weapons from Russia. Continue to watch the growing threat at America’s backdoor.

Anglo America

A massive bipartisan tax package reducing taxes and increasing government borrowing was sent on its way to President Barack Obama for his signature on Friday. The bill will extend the Bush-era tax cuts in addition to reducing Social Security taxes and renewing long-term jobless benefits for the unemployed. In a refreshing change, the Democrat leadership abandoned a trillion-dollar spending bill with over 6,000 pork barrel earmarks at the last minute after intense bipartisan fighting. Nevertheless, even the bill the president received, if signed into law, will increase the national debt by an astounding $858 billion and throw Social Security even deeper into the red.

Approval of the American Congress hit an all time low according to the latest Gallup poll, taken on December 10-12. Only 13 percent said they approved of the way Congress is doing its job. These shocking figures are proof that, as is prophesied in Isaiah 3, the United States is becoming bereft of high-quality leadership. For more information on this trend, see our article “Is America Governable?”

Crime has made headlines in the U.S. this week. Police in Los Angeles have released 180 photos of unidentified women who might have all been murdered by the same man. The suspect, a former sanitation worker and police garage attendant, was arrested in July and is believed to have killed 10 women. When arrested, scores of photos were found in his home, pictures that might have been taken from the women’s homes by a serial killer. The investigation is only the most recent example of the horrifying crime extant in America.