Below are this week's Articles of Interest as compiled by Mr. Van Baker. This collection of articles is cultivated by Mr. Baker with the goal of highlighting some of the trends, upheavals, and things to watch for in our society. These articles are not necessarily the express views of the United Church of God, Mr. Baker, or me as the pastor, but they are informative of what is occurring in our nation and culture. In accordance with Christ's warning to correctly discern the times (Matthew 16:1-4), it is wise to be aware of what is going on around us. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Era Is the Most Pivotal in Human History – This era stands as the most pivotal in human history, surpassing the trials of Ancient Rome, Medieval Europe, the Victorian era, and the Cold War. Rome’s collapse disrupted 70 million lives; today’s threats would annihilate 8 billion. Medieval plagues ravaged regions; pandemics now encircle the globe in days. Victorian progress reshaped economies; AI could redefine humanity itself. The Cold War’s nuclear peril was singular; this era’s risks— AI, nuclear war, pandemics, and socialist propaganda — are multifaceted and amplified by global connectivity. The Soviet Union and Venezuela’s socialist failures warn of propaganda’s ruinous potential, a threat magnified by digital platforms. This is not merely a chapter but the hinge upon which history turns, where our decisions will forge or fracture humanity’s future, unmatched by any moment before.
https://jesterpolitics.com/2025/05/07/pivotal-era-in-human-history/

Germany Will Build Strongest Conventional Army in Europe – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz pledged to turn the Bundeswehr into the strongest conventional army in Europe by giving it all the financial resources it needs to become so. Merz also said he would introduce a new volunteer military service.
https://www.newsweek.com/merz-germany-will-build-strongest-conventional-army-europe-2072112

The Return of Paganism - the spiritual crisis afflicting contemporary America has ancient and enduring roots – The barbarians are at the gates. I mean this almost literally. Everywhere you turn these days, pagans are afoot, busily hacking away at the Christian and Jewish foundations of American life and replacing them with a cosmology that would have been absolutely coherent to followers of, say, Voltumna, the Etruscan earth god, or to those who worshipped the Celt tribal protector Toutatis. To the pagans, change is the only real constant. Believing, as they did of old, in the radical duality of body and spirit, they enjoyed watching their gods breathe the latter into a wide array of incarnations. To please himself or trick his followers, a god could become a swan or a stone, manifest himself as a river or adopt whatever shape suited his schemes.
https://www.commentary.org/articles/liel-leibovitz/paganism-afflicts-america/

[Nearly] One-Third of American Cities No Longer Report Crime Statistics to the FBI – Tracking crime statistics – and more importantly, whether or not crime is rising or falling in the United States – is getting harder to do. That’s because nearly a third of America’s cities are no longer reporting crime statistics to the FBI. This is more than just a problem for policymakers looking for data to address the cities most in need of assistance. It also means that some policymakers are demanding bad policy because they’re relying on incomplete data. The Marshall Project reported that 31 percent of the 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the U.S. failed to report crime data to the FBI’s national database after transitioning to a new data collection system, according to the latest statistics from the FBI. That’s an improvement from 2021, when 40 percent of law enforcement agencies didn’t report crime data. Still, it’s a glaring blind spot, especially when that data is missing from some of the largest metro areas dealing with rampant, out-of-control crime.
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/incomplete-data-one-third-of-american-cities-no-longer-report-crime-statistics-to-the-fbi/

Feminine Translation Bible receives award from Religion Communicators Council – The Holy Bible Feminine Translation, the only word-for-word translation that translates the Holy Spirit to the feminine gender, received the Award of Merit from the Religion Communicators Council. The FTV-Bible is a word-for-word translation containing "bias free" Scriptures that uses the American Standard Version of 1901 (ASV) for its starting textual base. The goal of this Bible is to carry forward [a] legacy of "biblical Honesty" with recognition of the "dual feminine attributes" of God as well as His dual masculine attributes.
https://religionnews.com/2025/05/08/feminine-translation-bible-receives-award-from-religion-communicators-council/

Love thy neighbor as thyself. Really? If I asked you to name the most famous line in the Bible [Old Testament], what would you answer? While Shema Yisrael (“Hear O’Israel”) might get many votes, I imagine that the winning line would be “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18). "Some religions" refer to it as the Golden Rule, but all would agree that it is fundamental to any moral lifestyle. This is quite a tall order. Can we be expected to love other people as much as we love ourselves? Surely, this is an idealistic expectation. And yet, the Creator knows us better than we know ourselves. How can His Torah be so unrealistic?
https://www.jns.org/love-thy-neighbor-as-thyself-really/

Leviticus: the joyful middle book of the Torah – If you think of the Book of Leviticus, 'joy' may not be the first adjective that springs to mind! Laws, injunctions, severity, do's and don'ts, everything in fact that most ‘sensible’ people have discarded. However... a new book on Leviticus manages to stay true to Levitical teachings, while also engaging modernity head on.
https://christiantoday.com/news/leviticus-the-joyful-middle-book-of-the-torah

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely" – [The famous quote, by English historian Lord Acton in 1887, made reference to the power of Popes as well as kings] "I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way, against holders of power, increasing as the power increases..."
https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/lord-acton-writes-to-bishop-creighton-that-the-same-moral-standards-should-be-applied-to-all-men-political-and-religious-leaders-included-especially-since-power-tends-to-corrupt-and-absolute-power-corrupts-absolutely-1887

The Hidden Meaning And Tradition Behind Papal Names – What’s in a name? That’s a question Catholics often ask after a new pope is elected. One of his first official acts of a new pope is to choose a name. Deeply symbolic, the name often reflects the pope's values or spiritual inspirations. In the early centuries of Christianity, many popes changed their names because their original ones were of pagan origin.
https://religionunplugged.com/news/pope-the-hidden-meaning-and-tradition-behind-names

Chicago public school students awarded $2.6 million after being forced into ‘demonic’ Hindu meditation – The Chicago Board of Education and the New York-based David Lynch Foundation will pay out $2.6 million to former Chicago Public Schools high school students over forced Transcendental Meditation indoctrination. On May 7, 2025, Judge Matthew Kennelly of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois approved the class action settlement. The funds will be distributed among 773 individuals who, while students at Chicago public high schools, were either required to participate in Transcendental Meditation as part of their in-school curriculum or were deprived daily of a half-hour of academic instruction and required to maintain silence while their classmates focused their minds on secret mantras.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/chicago-public-school-students-awarded-2-6-million-after-being-forced-into-demonic-hindu-meditation/

UK gov’t admits it was wrong for prosecutors to say parts of the Bible are ‘no longer appropriate' – Prosecutors in the United Kingdom have admitted it was “inappropriate” for them to argue in a case against a Christian street preacher that some parts of the Bible are “simply no longer appropriate" in modern society and which would be deemed offensive if stated in public. The Crown Prosecution Service made the statement in relation to a case against a 55-year-old cancer survivor who was arrested in November 2020 for alleged “homophobia.”
https://www.christianpost.com/news/uk-prosecutors-rescind-statement-against-bible-in-john-dunn-case.html

What "tech bros" really think about Artificial Intelligence – Sam Altman is one of the most powerful men there has ever been. He runs OpenAI, the lab that gave us ChatGPT. He’s just turned 40 and he looks like he was AI-generated to run a tech company: casual clothes, big salesman eyes, furrowed brows. He tries not to think too much about artificial intelligence turning on us, he has said. But if it does, “AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime there’ll be great companies.”
https://archive.is/6Q523