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Is Putin sick or evil?

  Rumors abound that Putin has blood cancer or Parkinson’s disease, that he is soon to have an operation to remove a cancer or has already had the operation. As a trained mental health and addiction counselor, I’ve been wondering if Putin is hooked on something – steroids or oxycontin for pain to treat his condition- whatever it is- that causes him to want to ravage Ukraine?   But we have no way of finding out as only Putin and his physician know the answer to that question. Perhaps power has corrupted him; a man consumed by his own quest for greatness. We’ve seen photos of him sitting far away from anyone or group. A report circulates that he has his food tested because of his paranoia of being poisoned, when in actuality he poisons anyone who threatens his power. Is he a sociopath?   Perhaps. Certainly, he fits the diagnosis of Malignant Narcissistic Personality Disorder.   Maybe, Putin acts the way he does because of a deprived childhood, playing in a rat ...
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                    Passover message for 2022 Over 2000 years ago in an upper room in Jerusalem, an itinerant rabbi/charismatic leader was breaking bread and drinking wine with his school of disciples at a Passover meal when he announced that someone in the room would betray him. Judas did just that for a measly 30 pieces of silver. Apparently, “the Devil made him do it,” or just maybe he was upset that their leader hadn’t yet met Judas’ expectations of rescuing their country and routing the army of soldiers and murderous politicians who had occupied and now ruled their country. In either case, Judas let his baser instincts and personal prejudices lead him away from following Christ. As much as we in America and many other countries want the murderous Vladimir Putin and his army of killers and rapists to get out of Ukraine, we need to remember that Putin’s mother secretly baptized him as an infant – that he claims to be follower of Jes...
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                                      Why I cry: If you are reading these posts, you may be wondering way I am blogging about Russia or you haven’t read my book Memories and Miracles, about my missionary experiences in the former Soviet republics from 1989 through 2005. I first journeyed there as a peacemaker with a group called Peace Odysseys. Then, in 1991 I returned with a group called Creating a Sober World. This American group had planted AA groups and were recruiting volunteers to start support groups for family members. In 1992 Communism collapsed and Yeltsin was elected as the first president of the new Russian Republic. American missionaries were welcomed to plant churches and I was asked to put together a delegation to teach about alcohol addiction and recovery to new church leaders.   In the years following I lead American and Russian training teams working with a Russian mi...
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                          Putin's Fascist Beliefs: Wars of aggression far too often occur when dangerous despots have absolute power in nations where Christian nationalism and Fascism coexist. Hitler’s Germany and Putin’s Russia have similar patterns. Those of us who were alive during World War II are horrified to observe these patterns being repeated. Seeing the swastika next to the Russian Z causes me heartburn.             In 1933 Hitler encouraged all regional German churches, including Roman Catholics, to became one national German church. He’d tried one coup to take over the German democratic government. On the second try he succeeded. He then appointed a Nazi party member, Ludwig Muller, as bishop. With Hitler’s charismatic leadership style, German Christians were caught up in their Heil Hitlers and repeating the phrase, “One Nation! One God! One Reich! One ...
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  Christian Nationalism and Dominionism:     In my previous post I described the Russian Christian Nationalism that exists in Putin’s regime and the Russian Orthodox patriarchy, leading to Putin’s war to take over Ukraine, and a form of American Christian Nationalism called Dominionism. This post will, I hope, help to clarify these two terms.   Christ Nationalism has been evident throughout the history of Christianity, beginning when the Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. As Richard Niebuhr wrote in his book Christ and Culture (1951), Christians can challenge the culture in which they live, accommodate to the culture, or practice their faith separate from the culture. Niebuhr makes no ethical distinction between these positions but surmises a kind of dualism that can result. Dualism can be good or bad, depending upon the human frailties of those involved. Throughout two-thousand years of Christian history there ha...
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                                Unholy Christian Alliances:                                                                               The golden spires of the Church of Our Savior, one of the cherished Russian churches demolished by the Soviets, once again has risen proudly above the Moscow skyline. On my peacemaking trip to the Russian Republic in 1989 I visited a 1000-year memorial to the birth of the Russian Orthodox Church celebrated the year before. Three years later atheistic Communism collapsed. The Russian people, with prayers of Babushkas (Russian grandmothers) and secret baptisms of infants, had kept the historic faith of their fathers and mothers. The...
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