THE LOOMING IMPEACHMENT OF JOE BIDEN

 VIDEOS:

BOMBSHELL: Rep Jim Jordan DESTROY Pelosi and Biden for committing Serious acts of Treason

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOa2i517ttc

Biden is destroying our country: Mark levin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1SN9aW92Ik

Joe Biden could be impeached for Hunter Biden laptop contents

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYCqvLkVGsk

Hunter, Jim Biden scandal 'ties into access to Joe Biden': Rep. Andy Biggs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVJXcSG-36U

 THE HOOK AND CROOK TROIKA OF CORRUPTION

The Regime Media’s Quandary: By Exposing Joe Biden They Exonerate Donald Trump

By Steve McCann

The regime media (the amalgamation of the legacy media, elitist opinion writers, and the internet troika: Google/Facebook/Twitter) finds itself in a quandary of its own making.  As the nation descends into recession and societal turmoil, the candidate for whom they prostituted themselves, Joe Biden, reveals on a daily basis that he is not mentally or physically capable of being President.  Further, it has become increasingly more difficult to continuously obfuscate not only the ongoing revelations in Hunter Biden’s laptop but Joe’s life-long history of corruption and mendacity. 

By comparison, for four years, despite a lack of evidence coupled with numerous exculpatory investigations, this same cabal incessantly promoted the fictitious narrative that Donald Trump was a racist, a xenophobe, a demagogue, and the most corrupt person to ever serve as president of the United States. 

Accordingly, the regime media proclaimed that was in the nation’s vital interest to replace Trump with the “decent, honest, and honorable” Joe Biden.  As he has the “experience and character” to rescue the nation and restore “decency and honor” in the White House.

The quandary: how does the regime media avoid the exposure of Joe Biden’s lifelong corruption and failures without the public’s inevitable comparison of the two men, their families, and their accomplishments?   A comparison that would result in the effective exoneration and rehabilitation of Donald Trump, whom they relentlessly accused of being the most unscrupulous person on earth.  A cudgel they could no longer use if he decides to run for the presidency in 2024.

Their only option is to continue steadfastly limiting any exposure of Joe’s career-long penchant for selling his political office for personal gain.  They will have to throw Hunter Biden under the bus by claiming he was solely responsible for any revelations of corruption emanating from his abandoned laptop.  That a gradually diminishing but dedicated public servant, Joe Biden, was blissfully unaware of what was going on in his name.  Meanwhile, they and the Democrats in Congress can never abandon their quixotic search for Trump wrongdoing or continue beating the drum that he is the personification of corruption.

Why do they need to obfuscate Joe Biden’s personal history?   They cannot continue to muddle the revelations in Hunter Biden’s laptop if it is general knowledge that Joe Biden’s malfeasance and the “Biden Family Enterprise” began almost immediately after Joe Biden was first sworn in as a Senator in 1973 when Hunter was two years old. 

In August of 2019, Politico International, in a lengthy article, traced the beginning of the “Biden Family Enterprise” back to 1973, Joe’s first year in the Senate.  Freshman Senator Biden adamantly demanded and was appointed to a seat on the Senate Banking Committee.  Soon thereafter, his brother James, then a 23-year-old business neophyte with a net worth of less than $10,000, decided to open a nightclub.  Per a bank officer, James used the Biden family “connection” to obtain $165,000 ($1.1 million in 2022 dollars) in mostly unsecured loans from a failing Delaware bank.  Within less than 18 months the venture started to unravel, and James was unable to make the loan payments.  Joe intervened with the bank’s Chairman to make certain the bank did not harass James for payment or foreclose on the nightclub. 

Miraculously, James was able to find another bank, which was on the Federal Reserve watch list, that gave him a $500,000 ($2.6 million in 2022 dollars) loan.  Around the same time Joe Biden met with that bank’s senior vice-president on “other matters” -- no doubt a coincidence.  The nightclub venture soon failed, leaving behind a trail of lawsuits and unpaid loans and debts. 

The Bidens sanctimoniously proclaimed that Joe and his status as a U.S. Senator had nothing to do with James getting the loans.  The fact that Joe served on the Senate Banking Committee (which oversees bank regulatory agencies) and his 23-year-old brother with no business experience received extraordinary – actually, unheard-of -- loans from two banks under scrutiny by the government was, no doubt, also a mere coincidence.

Thus began a pattern that over the years that continued to include James and occasionally other members of the Biden family, and eventually Hunter Biden as the ultimate front for the Biden family business.  A family enterprise that despite chartering and acquiring numerous companies over the decades never operated a successful business.  Perhaps no prominent family in American history has been involved in so many consistent business failures.  The only successful aspect of the “Biden Family Enterprise” was selling Joe Biden and his political influence.

It was while Joe Biden was vice-president that the flood gates opened and what was a domestic influence-peddling business expanded globally into Ukraine, China, Russia and Kazakhstan, among other nations.  The layers of greed and unabashed willingness to sell access to the second-highest office in the country is mind-boggling.   The most egregious examples are five deals with the Communist Chinese and the subsequent payments to Hunter Biden and the Biden family valued at $31 million.

For the past five decades, the legacy media and virtually all of Washington, D.C. has known about Joe Biden’s corruption and penchant for being a serial fabulist and compulsive liar.  However, when Donald Trump was elected President, he was immediately inundated with false and hyperbolic corruption charges.

A month before his inauguration on January 20, 2017, Politico Magazine featured an article full of absurd innuendos and breathtaking assumptions entitled: “Trump Could be the Most Corruptible President Ever.”  Within ten months after his inauguration it was unabashedly proclaimed to the nation that the Trump Administration was already the most corrupt in American history.

Unsurprisingly, by the end of his term the regime media and left-wing “historians” declared that Donald Trump was not only the most corrupt president in American history but also the worst.

The New York Times, in a hyperbolic October 2020 editorial, pleaded with the public to vote for Joe Biden “and return the country to a more peaceful, stable and respectful form of self-governance” and accused Trump of “rampant corruption, celebrations of violence, gross negligence with people’s health and incompetence—the worst American president in modern history.”

It would not be an overstatement to say that Donald Trump and his immediate family are the most investigated, vetted and audited people in American history.  Yet virtually nothing substantive has been found.  I spent nearly forty years in international finance and interacted with numerous domestic and international real estate developers.  Success in this field requires a single-minded focus and determination in order to build or acquire properties.  Virtually all developers at some point have skirted the law, or greased palms, or by-passed regulations. 

In light of Trump’s massive business success and nearly 50 years in real estate development, it is remarkable, considering the armies of investigators and auditors with unlimited budgets, that nothing of consequence has been unearthed.  Which confirms that Donald Trump is among the least corrupt men to serve as President of the United States.  In other words, Donald Trump is the antithesis of Joe Biden.

That is why the regime media, and the Democrat Party will do everything possible to avoid the full exposure of the decades of corruption with

in the “Biden Family Enterprise.”  They cannot run the risk of the inevitable comparison of Donald Trump and his family to Joe Biden and his family. 

Nor can the regime media risk the unmasking of their primary role in not only falsely incriminating Donald Trump but duplicitously praising and overtly suppressing damning information about Joe Biden during an election.  As the citizenry will rightfully conclude that they are chiefly responsible for the disastrous state of affairs in the country today.Photo credit: Michael Vadon CC BY-SA 4.0 license

A GLIPSE OF BIDENOMICS IN THE DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED SANCTUARY STATE OF CALIFORNIA

VIDEO:

California's Underestimated Inflation Explained | Tim Shaler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFTj89bDV5g

25 Facts About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Will Blow Your Mind

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANm7FAKuCw0

The rest of the world sees America as the wealthiest nation on the entire planet. But when we take a closer look at the hardships our population is facing, we can rapidly realize that there's a tremendous amount of financial suffering in the United States, and that's getting dramatically worse with each passing year. Today, more money goes towards the pockets of the rich than ever before. Over the past few decades, we've been witnessing the greatest event of wealth transfer in the history of our nation without even realizing it. While billionaire CEOs like Mark Zuckenberg make over a million times more than the average American worker every year, many families out there, whose parents work themselves to the bone every single day, will still struggle to find what to eat and where to sleep with their children tonight. Extreme poverty continues to grow all across the country. According to an analysis released by the University of Chicago, at least 336,000 households with children live on less than two dollars a day. That’s a group known as the ultra-poor. Amid skyrocketing housing and rent prices, at least 600,000 Americans remain in a group known as the “unhoused”. “Right now, we are still trending in the wrong direction,” explained Anthony Love, interim executive director at the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. “When the public is told that one particular policy is going to end homelessness, what they’re expecting is that they’re going to see fewer homeless people around,” added Stephen Eide, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. What they haven’t considered yet is that housing has to come first, Eide stressed. Meanwhile, the gap between the rich and the rest of the population is worsening. On average, the top 1% of earners make 20 times more than the bottom 90% every year. The wealth disparity grows the higher up the ladder we climb. Even the mid-level one-percenters can’t reach the gigantic amounts earned by the ultra-rich. These disparities, make us question whether the US is indeed a rich nation or a nation for the rich. The answer is up to interpretation, but you can have a clearer picture about this issue at the end of this video. Today, we gathered some staggering stats that expose that poverty in the United States is wildly out of control. Here are 25 Facts About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Will Blow Your Mind.  For more info, find us on: https://www.epiceconomist.com/

THE BLACK CRIME TIDAL WAVE IN OBAMAVILLE, CHICAGO - BLACKS CELEBRATE EASTER BY SHOOTING EACH OTHER! - 14 Shot, One Fatally, Friday into Sunday Morning in Lori Lightfoot’s Chicago

Bond set for suspect in SC mall shooting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9v84xnmbw8

A BLACK MAN IS 15xs TO 30xs TIMES MORE LIKELY TO PERPETRATE VIOLENCE!

WATCH THIS VIDEO!

WATTERS ON FRANK R JAMES' STAGGERING RACISM

Watters: How was this guy not on the FBI's radar?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6FnVhTxYlk

14 Shot, One Fatally, Friday into Sunday Morning in Lori Lightfoot’s Chicago

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Scott Olson/Getty Images

AWR HAWKINS

17 Apr 20220

1:40

Fourteen people were shot, one of them fatally, Friday into Sunday morning in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) Chicago.

FOX 32 / Chicago Sun-Times reported that the shooting fatality occurred Sunday morning about 2:20 a.m. “in the 8400 block of South Aberdeen Street.” The victim, a 27-year-old man, was standing outside when the shot rang out. He was hit in the leg and transported to a hospital, where he died.

Breitbart News noted 27 people were shot, six of them fatally, last weekend in Lightfoot’s Chicago.

The Chicago Tribune reported 145 homicides in Chicago January 1, 2022, through April 9, 2022.

2021 was the deadliest year Chicago has witnessed in a quarter of century. The Hill pointed out Chicago police confirmed the city witnessed 797 homicides during the course of 2021.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

 

The Media Set Out To Incite the Next Subway Shooter

Alleged 'execution-style' killing was nothing of the sort

New York subway shooting suspect Frank James / Getty Images

Washington Free Beacon Editors • April 18, 2022 5:00 am

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A Washington Free Beacon report last week from our colleague Charles Lehman put data behind what we all know to be true: that the media harp on violence carried out by whites and downplay it when the perpetrator is black—or should we say "Black."

That report went up on Thursday, the day after police arrested the black nationalist who gunned down 13 people in a Brooklyn subway station. His race—and his professed bigotry against whites and Jews—were either excluded from media reports entirely or described in an anodyne way. The New York Times described his "harshly bigoted views"—against whom, they could not say.

Then came the release of video from a police shooting in Grand Rapids, Mich., an incident with a white "perpetrator" and a black victim. Video shows 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya fleeing from the unidentified officer before grabbing for the officer's taser. The two struggle on the ground before the officer fatally shoots Lyoya.

The incident became the subject of wall-to-wall news coverage, with the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN referring to Lyoya as an "unarmed Black man"—even though he had grabbed the cop's taser.

Add to that the media's uncritical promulgation of the grieving family's claim that Lyoya was "killed like an animal" and family lawyer Benjamin Crump's characterization of the incident as an "execution." Crump pushed his claim on air with MSNBC's racial agitator Al Sharpton, who is set to deliver the eulogy this week. It's no wonder Michiganders spent the weekend protesting. (The press apparently doesn't use pompous fact-checking clauses like "claimed without evidence" unless it's former president Donald Trump or one of his allies who's doing the talking.)

The coverage of the Grand Rapids shooting was so over-the-top that the sober commentary offered by a former cop, Baltimore's Anthony Barksdale, seemed almost out of place. "When you have an individual … trying to take control—or has control—of the officer's equipment, especially a taser, then lethal force is the next level above a taser," Barksdale told CNN. "The test is, what would a reasonable officer do? The issues with the taser, I could see lethal force being used by this officer."

The hysterical media coverage of the incident is surely being consumed by the next subway shooter out there, whose motivations will then be dutifully buried in paragraph 21 of the New York Times report on the tragedy, if they get a mention at all.

Easter in America - But there is good news for Christians: Non-denominational churches are on the upswing. Churches in Africa, China and elsewhere are thriving and growing.

 “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

—Philippians 2:9–11

Easter in America

By M.B. Mathews

Were you to walk the streets of many American cities, you would never know that this Sunday is Resurrection Day, more often called "Easter." The most important event in human history, the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, is celebrated with great reverence and fanfare by Christians around the world, but on American streets that reality is hard to find. A couple of years ago, Jesse Waters did a "man on the street" Easter quiz in NYC. Some did not even know there was such an event as the resurrection of Christ, let alone a holiday to commemorate it. One woman said Jesus was probably Muslim but that she wasn't sure because she "didn't know him." Another said that Easter Sunday celebrates Jesus' second resurrection. Still a third, when asked what Good Friday means to her said, "Nothing. I don't shop."

Secular America is Resurrection ignorant because all vestiges of the founding principles and the Judeo-Christian ethic have been removed from schools and from the culture. Entire generations only know the name “Jesus Christ” to use it to swear. Secularists are loathe to recognize Christianity and Judaism as legitimate religions and more likely to recognize holidays such as Ramadan and Kwanzaa. This attitude is promoted country-wide by secularists and people of other faiths.

Mainline churches in America are closing or fragmenting. People who identify as having no religion at all (“nones”) are on the increase, which is why American streets are filled with Resurrection ignorance. But there is good news for Christians: Non-denominational churches are on the upswing. Churches in Africa, China and elsewhere are thriving and growing. It seems many Christians are hungry for a more biblical, less woke Christianity. This is a good sign. It reveals a hunger for guard rails, for rules, for some structure in life, for hope, for a place to put their sins. Perhaps people are getting tired of getting their way and doing as they please. Perhaps they want something to worship other than themselves.

The bodily resurrection of Christ is at the core of Christianity. Without it, Christianity is dead. St. Paul told Christians that if Jesus did not rise bodily, "….your faith is in vain." With that in mind, it is interesting to note that atheists are still doing their best to attack the Resurrection. They believe that if they can only find Jesus’ nail-scarred skeleton, they may rid the world of this pesky religion for good. They are whistling in the wind.

People have been trying to kill Jesus and His followers for millennia, but the drop in church attendance is not the death knell atheists hope it is. It was foretold in the Bible in the Gospel of Matthew:  "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life, and there are few who find it."

The cultural gate through which the "nones" are flowing is very wide. Millions are rushing through it. The gate through which Christians are going is very narrow. Few will enter. The biblical narrowing of the gate is aligned perfectly with what is supposed to happen -- the reduced presence of the Christian church. When it is all over, the number of wide-gate people will be staggering, the number of narrow gate people will be small. Resurrection is for the few, not the many. Atheists should take no comfort in the decline of the church in America. The reverse should be the case; they should be nervous.

This Resurrection Day, Easter Sunday, is a day of choices for Americans. In America, wide-gate secularism seems to reign supreme right now but that is an illusion. Christians here in America celebrate Resurrection Day with assurance of what is to come. Americans have a choice and our prayers are that they will choose the narrow gate.

Image: PxHere

Liberalism Can Never Accept the Real Christ

By Paul Krause

The central truth of Christianity is that Christ is not only the Son of God but that he came to suffer and redeem us by his sacrificial atonement. In this world of suffering, the suffering of Christ alleviates ours and heals us of our brokenness. Liberals, however, cannot abide by this Christ because they see the state, not Christ, as the path to redemption.

Christianity asserts that the world is broken, as such the world needed to be healed by a Love that took on this brokenness and wounds of the world. Another central claim of Christianity, one that is now often distorted and twisted for the service of liberal humanitarianism, is that God is love. These two claims intersect with Christ on the Cross. On the cross the incarnate God of love came into the world and offered healing and reconciliation through his sacrificial death, bearing the suffering of the world to himself.

A world that acknowledges reality of suffering and our inability to resolve it ourselves is a world that needs Christ. A world that is blind to suffering and substitutes the reality of the suffering and wounded world for a world of coercive submission, domineering triumph, or the eradication of suffering through the hand of the state, is a world that does not need Christ. That is the impetus of liberalism and why it can never accept the real Christ.

The liberal world, in its dream of eradicating suffering by the works of human hands, is a world that increasingly shuns Christ and pettily transform him into a human image of their own wanton dreams: The Christ who is open and does not rebuke or require any suffering; the Christ who accepts without repentance (because repentance requires some degree of suffering); the Christ who is a humanistic ethics sage preaching a vague and abstract gospel of “love” without any concrete sacrifices to express love. And the dream of creating a world free of harm is the essence of liberalism as anyone who studies liberal political theory knows.

Liberalism accepts certain Christian truths before corrupting and distorting them -- which is the way of Satan. Liberalism accepts that the world is broken and suffering. Liberalism accepts that there is a certain lust for domination that permeates the world. Liberalism accepts that the salvation of man involves overcoming the brokenness and suffering of the world. But that is where the similarities end and the great divergence commences.

Liberalism’s redeemer is the state, rather than Christ, which brings about the harmless utopia that, according to Hobbes, Locke, and Rawls, all men seek. Its saints are militant socialists moved not by a love of other but a self-adulating love of self mixed with self-righteousness and hatred of the wealthy and middle-classes whom they wish to overthrow. Liberalism is hatred disguised as compassion. It is the lust to dominate disguised with the language of love to give it moral and sentimental potency over its rivals who are labelled as cruel, unjust, and not compassionate.

It is the liberal dream of eliminating suffering that causes the Christ of liberal cultures to be transformed from the Suffering Redeemer to something more palatable to the present zeitgeist. Look at the liberal theologies today, widespread in all denominations as they are, where the Christ emphasized by liberal Christianity matches the prevailing liberalism of the times.

Here, Christ is transformed into an open borders prophet who crossed boundaries and turned away no one. Christ is transformed into the “open and affirming” lover who accepts one as they are without the mission to do away with sin. Christ is transformed into the anti-poverty crusader calling to life all up into health and wealth. Christ is even proclaimed as a “socialist.”

The liberal Christ is anything but the Suffering Servant who redeemed the world through his suffering which was the highest expression of love possible and who, in His suffering, fulfilled the promises to the patriarchs and prophets. As stated, the liberal’s Christ -- if they even keep Christ -- is just a figurehead for politics and to advance certain state-sponsored policies. Liberals take an element of Christ’s character and make that the entire essence of who he is.

Liberalism is incompatible with Christianity at every level. But most pernicious is how liberalism infiltrates Christianity and corrupts it from the inside -- transforming the Christian tradition into a new, progressive, and modern puppet for the secular establishment and the dreams of godless liberal philosophers who hated Christianity. When the liberal establishment is threatened it turns to Christianity to hold it up by distorting the gospel and the message of love and service to others; when the liberal establishment is ascendant it seeks to curb and eliminate Christianity from its last vestiges of public life. Christians should be aware of this double-game played by the establishment.

The contemporary world wishes to rid the world of suffering. It seeks to create a harmless world where no sacrifice is necessary because sacrifice would be harmful; sacrifice means one needs to give up something dear to them -- to deny thyself and follow Christ is antithetic to the modern spirit. Because of this, the modern world does not need the real Christ. Insofar that Christ persists in the modern world it is a Christ who is a shallow parody of his true self and the self-created delusion of anti-Christian dreams which is, and must be, an unreality for the Christian.

Christ was the Suffering Servant prophesied by Isaiah and the Psalmists. Christ was the seed that would crush the Serpent and free humanity from the chains of disordered love. Christ was, and is, the Bride of Israel. Christ was he who took away the sins of the world and calls us to follow him. “Pick up your cross and follow me.”

The Christ of Easter is the Christ that so many flee from but is the Christ who calls us to love because love entails suffering -- thus, Christ tells us to pick up our cross and follow him. This Easter, as with every Easter, we must always keep sight of the True Christ, the Christ who hung on the Cross and brought salvation through his sacrificial love. As St. Paul says, “For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”

In this Easter beset by suffering, we are reminded that God came to suffer with us. Christ, not the state, heals us. Christ, not the state, brings our redemption. Insofar that liberalism sees the state as the vehicle of redemption it can never accept the real Christ.

Paul Krause is the editor of VoegelinView. He is the author of The Odyssey of Love: A Christian Guide to the Great Books, The Politics of Plato, and contributed to The College Lecture Today and the forthcoming book Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters.

Christians Celebrate Easter 2022 – ‘If Christ Has Not Been Raised, Your Faith Is Futile’

Getty Images

KEN KLUKOWSKI

16 Apr 2022Washington, DC0

5:19

“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

—Philippians 2:9–11

Christians celebrate Easter this Sunday, proclaiming the cornerstone of their faith, that Jesus Christ rose from the grave in a bodily resurrection. Alone among the world’s religions, Christians believe that on the third day after his public execution on Good Friday, the founder and focus of their faith rose from the dead.

The Bible contains four Gospels containing this historical narrative outside Jerusalem, Israel, in A.D. 30, but the New Testament is full of additional chapters and passages on the topic of the resurrection.

One chapter is found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. The Apostle Paul – who early in his career went by the name Saul – had been a zealous persecutor of the new church, hunting down Christians. But on the road to Damascus – traveling there in the next stage of his crusade against the early church – Paul experienced a radical conversion to Christianity, claiming that the risen Christ appeared to him and spoke with him, and that Jesus had appeared to five hundred people at once, inviting his readers to go talk to them if those readers doubted his story.

Paul’s message in this chapter is that Christianity is not about becoming a better person. He says that Jesus of Nazareth was not a wise philosopher, great moral example, or inspirational leader. Instead Paul claims that Jesus is divine, that after his crucifixion and burial his body came back to life days later, and that hundreds saw him afterward. Then – in a statement that would shock many today – Paul says that if Jesus did not physically rise from the dead, then Christianity is worthless, and Christians should be pitied because  they waste their lives on a lie.

Paul lost his comfortable life in Judaism when he became a Christian, but then became the most prolific of all the New Testament writers, and years later was martyred for his faith – which he said he welcomed, because Jesus’ resurrection meant that one day Paul would be resurrected as well.

From the first epistle of Paul to the church at Corinth:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the world I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain….

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death…  When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

—1 Corinthians 15:1–28 (ESV).

“Come behold the wondrous mystery, slain by death the God of life;

But no grave could e’er restrain him, praise the Lord, he is alive!

What a foretaste of deliverance, how unwavering our hope;

Christ in power resurrected, as we will be, when he comes!”

—Matt Boswell, Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery (2013)

Ken Klukowski is a Breitbart News contributor.

Pope Francis: We Need the Risen Christ More than Ever in this ‘Easter of War’

TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty

THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D.

17 Apr 20220

2:50

ROME — Pope Francis denounced Russia’s “cruel and senseless war” on Ukraine Sunday, praying for Ukrainian victims and refugees.

“May there be peace for war-torn Ukraine, so sorely tried by the violence and destruction of the cruel and senseless war into which it was dragged,” the pontiff prayed in his yearly Easter Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world) blessing before a crowd of 50,000 in Saint Peter’s Square.

“In this terrible night of suffering and death, may a new dawn of hope soon appear!” he urged. “Let there be a decision for peace.”

The pope went on to condemn the aggression as an ongoing “flexing of muscles” while people are suffering.

“Please, let us not get used to war! Let us all commit ourselves to imploring peace, from our balconies and in our streets!” he said. “May the leaders of nations hear people’s plea for peace.”

Francis also reaffirmed his closeness to the people of Ukraine, without ever mentioning Russia by name.

“I hold in my heart all the many Ukrainian victims, the millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, the divided families, the elderly left to themselves, the lives broken and the cities razed to the ground,” he said.

Pope Francis blesses the olive branches as he leads the Palm Sunday mass in St. Peter Square at the Vatican on April 10, 2022. (FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP via Getty Images)

“I see the faces of the orphaned children fleeing from the war,” he continued. “As we look at them, we cannot help but hear their cry of pain, along with that of all those other children who suffer throughout our world,” among whom he expressly mentioned “those denied the right to be born” through abortion.

“Amid the pain of the war, there are also encouraging signs, such as the open doors of all those families and communities that are welcoming migrants and refugees throughout Europe,” Francis declared. “May these numerous acts of charity become a blessing for our societies, at times debased

 by selfishness and individualism, and help to make them welcoming to all.”

Our eyes, he said, “are incredulous on this Easter of war. We have seen all too much blood, all too much violence.”

“Our hearts, too, have been filled with fear and anguish, as so many of our brothers and sisters have had to lock themselves away in order to be safe from bombing,” he added.

“Today, more than ever, we hear echoing the Easter proclamation so dear to the Christian East: ‘Christ is risen! He is truly risen!’” he exclaimed.

“Today, more than ever, we need him, at the end of a Lent that has seemed endless,” he said.

“We need the crucified and risen Lord so that we can believe in the victory of love, and hope for reconciliation. Today, more than ever, we need him to stand in our midst and repeat to us: ‘Peace be with you!’ Only he can do it,” he declared.Follow @tdwilliamsrome

Christians in Lands of Persecution Fear Attacks on Easter

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KOLA SULAIMON/AFP via Getty

GABRIELLE REYES

17 Apr 20220

6:04

Christians living in countries hostile to Christianity often face increased fears for their personal safety in the run-up to the Easter holiday, Mike Gore, the CEO of Open Doors Australia and New Zealand (an organization that aids persecuted Christians) wrote in an op-ed for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Thursday.

“[F]or many Christians around the world, the anticipation of Easter is accompanied by the fear of an attack. As many Christians gather on Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, the risk of violence intensifies. As Christians gather to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus, they themselves become targets for violent extremism,” Gore wrote on April 14.

The Christian holiday of Easter falls on April 17 this year.

Gore on Thursday cited Open Doors statistics which found that “526 Christians have lost their lives while celebrating Easter over the past seven years, with hundreds more injured. Just a year ago, on 28 March 2021, twenty people were injured in a bombing on Palm Sunday in a church in Makassar, south Sulawesi [Indonesia].”

Gore referred to a suicide bombing perpetrated by two Muslim terrorists outside a Catholic church in Makassar that wounded at least 20 people and killed only the attackers.

Police stand guard outside a church as Christians gather for Easter mass on April 4, 2021, in Surabaya amid tight police security following the March 28 a bombing at the Makassar cathedral on Palm Sunday. (JUNI KRISWANTO/AFP via Getty Images)

“Both suspects were killed instantly after they rode a motorbike into the church compound and, when challenged by security, detonated a bomb packed with nails,” the Jakarta Post reported on March 29, 2021, citing local police.

The March 2021 bombing took place “on Sunday at a time the congregation was inside the church on the island of Sulawesi, just as the mass was ending,” Al Jazeera observed.

Indonesian National Police Chief General Listyo Sigit Prabowo told reporters at the time the two attackers were members of the Islamic terror group Jemaah Anshorut Daulah (JAD), which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2015.

JAD was responsible for a series of prior attacks on Indonesian Christians in 2018, including “suicide bombings at churches in Indonesia’s second-biggest city Surabaya, which killed a dozen congregants,” the Jakarta Post recalled at the time.

“JAD was also implicated in a 2019 cathedral suicide bombing in the Philippines committed by a married Indonesian couple. That attack killed worshippers and security forces,” according to the newspaper.

Indonesia is home to the world’s largest Muslim population. The nation’s latest census data (taken in 2010) demonstrates that 87.2 percent of Indonesia’s nearly 240 million inhabitants follow Islam.

“Violent Islamic radicalism is present in 7 out of the top 10 countries” in which it is most dangerous to be a Christian, Open Doors reported as part of its 2022 World Watch List, published in January.

Police personnel inspect the premises of the Santo Fransiscus Xaverius church ahead of religious services on Good Friday in Kuta, near Denpasar on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali, on April 2, 2021. (SONNY TUMBELAKA/AFP via Getty Images)

Elsewhere in the world, Islamic radicalism in Nigeria — embodied by Muslim Fulani “herdsmen” and the jihadist terror group Boko Haram — sees Christians targeted for violent attacks on a regular basis. An estimated 50 percent of Nigeria’s 90 million-plus population is Muslim while 48.1 percent of the population is Christian.

Jihadist Fulanis routinely massacre Christian villages across Nigeria, targeting the communities specifically for their outward displays of Christian faith. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is himself a Muslim and a member of the Fulani ethnic group. Nigerians have often criticized Buhari for failing to curtail Fulani attacks on Christians since he was elected in 2015.

Boko Haram is also a major perpetrator of targeted anti-Christian attacks in Nigeria. The jihadist group’s aim is to eradicate both Christian and Western culture across the Lake Chad Basin, which unites northeastern Nigeria with the neighboring countries of Chad and Niger.

International Christian Concern reported in August 2020 that “between 50,000 and 70,000 Christians have been killed by radical Islamists” in Nigeria over the past 10 years.

In India, radical Hindu nationalists regularly perpetrate mob violence against the country’s minority Christians. In one such incident, a group of suspected Hindu nationalists broke into the home of a Christian pastor in central India’s Chhattisgarh state on March 17, dragged the man out onto the street, and stabbed him to death.

“According to local Christians, the pastor had been warned by Hindutva [Hindu nationalist] goons against preaching his religion and had been threatened with his life [prior to his murder],” the Indian news website Siasat revealed on March 21.

Christian devotees take part in a Good Friday procession in Amritsar on April 15, 2022. (NARINDER NANU/AFP via Getty Images)

“Hindus make up 79.8% of India’s population and Muslims account for 14.2%; Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains account for most of the remaining 6%,” Pew Research Center reported in September 2021.

China’s ruling Communist Party, which is officially atheist, also severely persecutes Christian minorities in the country through oppressive policies and regular raids of “house churches” or spaces of worship created inside the privacy of Chinese Christian homes. China’s ruling Communist Party enacted a law on March 1 prohibiting the circulation of Christian-related content on China’s heavily censored internet, Open Doors reported.

The Communist Party officially allows Chinese citizens to observe just five religions: Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, and “Christianity,” which the Party acknowledges as the “Three-Self Church.” While a severely regulated form of Christianity is ostensibly tolerated according to official rules, the Communist Party in practice creates hostile conditions for any Chinese who dare to openly worship as Christians.