Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And today, I want to ask you for consideration, with whom do we as Americans have more in common, Europe or Russia? Now, a few weeks ago, I made the case that in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, Russia has the greater claim to the contested region of Crimea than does Ukraine. That is just a historical reality.

And that should be kept in mind by our own diplomats when we take sides in the Ukraine war. But today, I want to do a comparison and contrast between what we share in common with these two respective combatants and where we differ. And it's enlightening, too. The difference between our association and attachments with the European Union and Russia. Well, for example, in Russia and America, there is the issue of religion.

Now, as a pastor, this is the chief area of comparison for me, since politics is downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from religion. And even then, religion is downstream from God himself, I would posit. Well, at first glance, it seems that America has deep roots in the religious traditions of Europe, and it does. We are inheritors of the Western tradition, which began with the early small-c Catholic Church of the second and third centuries.

And over time, divisions appeared over various doctrinal issues, such as that in 1048 A.D., where the Eastern Orthodox Church, centered in Constantinople, which is modern Istanbul, split off from the Roman Catholic Church, which was centered in Rome. And America is uniquely formed and shaped by the Reformation of the 16th century. Our entire denominational structure, for example, including my own, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, can be traced to roots deep in the Presbyterian movement on the British Isles during the 16th and 17th centuries.

And we can say the same about every other denomination on American soil, excluding the Eastern Orthodox or the Russian Orthodox Churches, of course, that they were shaped and formed by other religious movements on the European continent. So, when it comes to taking sides in Ukraine-Russia conflict, in which the European Union and NATO is lined up with Ukraine against Russia, it seems that the religious element favors Ukraine. Right? Don't we have more in common with Europe than Russia here? Well, all other things being equal, I would have to say yes, but I can't stop there.

I have to ask, what in the world has happened to the faith of Europeans? What is the state of religious faith there? Is there any remnant of the Christian faith besides beautiful ancient cathedrals? And the answer comes back, for me anyway, Europe knows nothing of Christ anymore. In fact, according to the European Academy on Religion and Culture, a revival of paganism in Europe is taking place.

And that academy says they boast a substantial following, numbering at least in the hundreds of thousands, potentially extending into the low millions, unquote. Cited from the European Academy on Religion and Culture. Now, paganism disappeared from Europe during the Christian era, although modern pagans, they call them neo-pagans now, they maintain it never completely disappeared, but merely went underground. But today, the old Norse gods of the Vikings are making a comeback in Iceland and Denmark and Sweden, and outright Satanism and Lucifer worship are gaining popularity and becoming increasingly bold.

Oh, for example, the 2023 Olympics notoriously began and ended with tributes to Lucifer, complete with a desecrating Last Supper at the beginning and a descending Satan from heaven from heaven at the closing ceremony. Well, we can also go back to the dedication of the Swiss Gothard Base Tunnel, which is also nicknamed the Tunnel. That dedication was also openly, blatantly a satanic ceremony that clearly identifies Europe as in the spiritual grip of Lucifer. Many feel that Europe is not only post-Christian, which everybody would agree, but now completely neo-pagan.

We have nothing in common spiritually with Europe anymore, unless America hopes to follow in her footsteps. However, just the opposite is happening in Russia. There is a revival of Christianity after years of dormant spirituality. Victoria Smolkin, in her book, Sacred Space is Never Empty. I like that title.

Victoria Smolkin's book is entitled Sacred Space is Never Empty, a history of Soviet atheism. Well, Victoria observes, and I quote her, in Russia, there is a religious revival happening. Orthodox Christianity is thriving after enduring a 70-year period of atheistic Soviet rule. In 1991, just after the collapse of the USSR, about two-thirds of Russians claimed no religious affiliation. Today, 71% of Russians identify as Orthodox.

One can now see priests giving sermons on television. They can encounter religious processions in St. Petersburg and watch citizens lining up for holy water in Moscow. Unquote. Well, several religious leaders have cultivated closer ties with American evangelicals with American evangelicals, too, seeing common ground on important issues. Russian Orthodox hierarchs, Patriarch Kirill and Metropolitan Hilarion, in particular, have reached out to evangelical leaders in America, and they have found willing partners.

And that common ground includes, for example, traditional Christian values. Or the building up of the family. Or staunch opposition to gender confusion and abortion. And then the ending of persecution of Christians in the West, especially in Ukraine. Ukraine persecutes Christians, dear listener.

Do you want to be on the side of a nation that persecutes Christians? All of these things, the West hates. All of these things, the Russian people and her leadership love and defend. And the Russian government has fostered this revival, seeing it as benefiting the greater interests of Russia, too. Perhaps chief among those in the government who feel this way is none other than President Vladimir Putin.

Oh, Hitler. Oh, the devil incarnate. No, Vladimir Putin embraces his Orthodox faith. His spiritual biography is really fascinating, too. He was born in St. Petersburg, which was Leningrad under the Soviet system.

And Putin grew up during the siege of Leningrad. He was baptized as a baby in the Russian Orthodox Church. And he was raised by a fervent, believing mother. Putin saw himself as a true Russian patriot. And he joined the KGB and worked in Moscow and especially in Germany.

Now, Putin was terribly disillusioned with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. That affected him deeply. He saw it as an embarrassment to Russia. Many observers see Putin's attempt to assert hegemony over former Soviet territories, including Ukraine, as not so subtle moves to rebuild the Soviet Union. Well, Putin worked his way through the Byzantine path of Russian politics to be elected president in 2000, a position he has tenaciously held on to, excepting a four-year period when it was held by one of his subordinates, Medvedev.

Otherwise, Putin has maintained an iron grip on the presidency of Russia. Now, Putin has repeatedly affirmed his own personal religious faith. He prays daily in a small chapel next to the presidential office. And for many years, Putin has certainly had a close relationship with Archimandrite Tikhon, who is the father superior of Stravetsky Monastery. Even during the period of official Soviet atheism, Putin continued to affirm and practice his religious faith as taught him in the Russian Orthodox Church.

So, despite all of the criticism hurled at him over the last few years, Hitler, dictator, communist, no, Putin has consistently pursued a policy that champions Russia and her values, Christian values, as articulated by his own Russian Orthodox Church. And he has done so in direct contradiction to the tradition of atheistic Marxism. Oh, this is something that American Christians must get through their thick, rapture-obsessed heads. Russia is not the nation of Armageddon. Russia will not provide the godless hordes of soldiers who will have their eyes melted from their sockets in a single moment of nuclear destruction at the last day.

That is silly nonsense. In fact, a case can be made that Russia, as she is now constituted, is more righteous and devoted to Christ than is the United States of America. I would assert that. The larger point is that faithful American Christians have far more in common with their Russian counterparts than with the godless Luciferian European Union, and even with our own godless Luciferian federal government, and most state governments, for that matter. We have, as Christians, more in common with our brothers and sisters in Russia than we do here or in Europe.

Secondly, we must also compare and contrast the United States of America with Russia and the European Union in terms of cultural values. Cultural values. Let's look at those. That is family, the sexes, sports, entertainment, that kind of thing. Now, as a corollary to the religious commonalities, it is necessary to point out that Russia is moving towards a more conservative, traditional set of cultural values.

In fact, speaking of Vladimir Putin, he officially called for the promotion of, and I quote, traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, unquote. And he wants this to be broadcast internationally. The Russian courts and government have followed suit in encouraging traditional values and sanctioning corrupt Western values. For example, the Russian Supreme Court outlawed the so-called LGBT movement as extremist, and Putin has rightly characterized the West as satanic, coming right out and calling us in the West satanic, accusing us of trying to undermine Russia by exporting liberal ideologies. And we have.

We've tried to do that. In 2013, the state Duma forbade by law the equation of gay relationships with heterosexual relationships. And Putin has articulated on several occasions Russia's opposition to gender transition, whether boy to girl or girl to boy. And in a speech to the Russian parliament in 2014, Putin said, and I quote, our priorities are healthy families and a healthy nation, traditional values that we have inherited from our ancestors, together with a focus on the future, unquote.

And there is also a little known document from 2011, which details 17 values that the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian government hold forth in common. And I quote from that document. It says, basic values, the foundation of national unity. And it was created by the initiative of the Russian Orthodox Church. And it defines 17 values, both at the individual and the state level and the state level.

For example, faith, that's right at the top. So religious faith is right at the top for Russia. And then justice as well. We could use justice administered in our nation, for that matter. And then they go on to articulate 15 others, peace and freedom, unity, morality, dignity, honesty, patriotism, solidarity, compassion for those in need, respect for one's culture and national traditions, family, and hard work and willingness to make sacrifices.

17 values that we, as American Christians, share in common with Russia and their Orthodox Christian Church. But in stark, ugly contrast, are the admitted so-called cultural values of the European Union, with whom we ostensibly identify. The European Commission's official website, for example, insists that Europe is now a quote, unquote, post-ethnic culture. Buzzwords. Europe is now a post-ethnic culture, according to the European Commission, in which all ethnicities are now folded into one, especially with the influx of millions and millions of Islamic migrants and Muslim migrants in the last few decades.

According to the European Union, traditional European Union, traditional European cultures must move away from what they call our ethno-ethno, excuse me, ethno-national understanding of culture and diversity, unquote. Buzzwords again. But it means that the French must unlearn Frenchness, the British must unlearn Britishness, and the Germans must unlearn what it means to be German. Europe is post-Christian and must repent of its past efforts to Christianize its former colonies, according to this website, which was in reality a form of oppression and control.

Yes, all of the European ways of life are rooted in evil colonialism, and they now must engage in what the website calls the decolonization of knowledge. Did you know that the Western tradition of teaching and learning is a colonized form of knowledge? Europe must move away from deficiency models, as the website calls it, of culture and values. Oh, on and on, we could go. Yet, at the very same time that Europeans are being shamed into giving up their heritage and values, all the Muslim migrants who have taken over large swaths of the continent, entrenching their own and establishing Muslim enclaves throughout Europe.

Well, apparently, they have not heard about the supposed post-ethnic culture of their new homes, have they? A little-known paper published by the Defense Department for its long-term strategy group, and that paper was published back in 2007, forecasted precisely what Europe is experiencing now. And I quote from that document, they say, a comparative study of Christian and Muslim immigrants to Germany establishes that the integration of Muslims is substantially harder than the integration of Christians. Although the integration of Spaniards and Yugoslavs in Germany was prolonged and difficult by American standards, it nonetheless took place.

Muslims experienced problems forming an ethnic identity in a country where the dominant religion is not Islam. Very important. The paper goes on to say, Christian immigrants, by contrast, were able to take advantage of the religious background they share with the vast majority of Germans to integrate. Unquote. Muslims experienced problems forming ethnic identities in a country where the dominant religion is not Islam.

Did you hear that? All over Europe, the experience is the same. Muslims refuse to assimilate. They refuse even to integrate. Instead, they work to dominate every culture into which they are introduced.

There are well over 50 million Muslims in Europe, and now there is no sign that they are integrating into the modern liberal cultures of the respective European Union countries to which they've come. Instead, they are making true what Gaddafi predicted 20 years ago when he said, we have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe, without swords, without guns, without conquest. We'll turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades. Unquote.

Ah, lo and behold, dear listener, what history always teaches us. Islam is a theocratic religion bent on conquering the world, just as Muhammad exhorts in the Quran. Despite what the liberal European Union parliament executives say among themselves at their cocktail parties, where, as one member quipped, and he said, I am perplexed by the immigrants' unwillingness to integrate into our prosperous, welcoming culture. Oh, naivete in the extreme.

History of past dealings with Islam and the Ottoman Empire in particular would have informed these people of the near conquering of Europe on numerous occasions in the past, if not for the bravery and determination of men like Charles Martel or Stephen Sobieski. I encourage you to look up those two men. Great histories. But that is part of colonial thinking. Europeans must divest themselves of while Islam marches on.

Italian Monsignor Carlo Liberati inadvertently spoke frankly about this in an interview. And that Monsignor said, in 10 years, we will all be Muslims because of our stupidity. Unquote. He's at least honest about it. Europe's evil, decadent culture is no match for militant Islam.

And the United States has little, if anything, in common with present-day Europe either. Ah, number three, we must also consider the plan for the economies of our respective countries. Just when America is making the shift from war and plundering of the American people to a prosperous peacetime economy under Trump, well, Europe is committed to what the European Commission calls a war economy mode. Yes, a war economy mode is for Europe now. And they see this as the basis for their economy for the next 20 years.

In reality, dear listener, it has always been the long-term strategic plan for the European Union and NATO to engage Russia in a decades-long protracted conventional war that they calculate will bleed Russia dry and defeat her. Russia could then be broken up into several discrete nations, which would be under the control of the European Union and NATO. In fact, the EU foreign policy chief recently stated it quite baldly. And I quote her, she said, Russia's defeat is not a bad thing because there are many different nations as part of Russia.

And she concludes, and I quote, if you have small nations, it's not a bad thing if the big power becomes much smaller, unquote. So, we see what the intent is and how evil is that. Nations supposedly build armies for defense against aggression. The European Union wants to build armies in order to conquer and subdue other nations, Russia being first in the crosshairs. And the war in Ukraine is only the first strategic step towards that end.

So, make no mistake about this, dear listener. America has no business aligning itself with the European Union and NATO, which makes war not to defend itself, but to sustain an economy and take territory. Well, we must also compare and contrast the erosion of personal liberties in Europe and America as compared to Russia. Now, as J.D. Vance pointed out recently, freedom of speech is in retreat in Europe.

In fact, he went on to say that the biggest threat to Europe is not Russia, it's not China, but rather, it's withdrawal from some of the most fundamental values. Values formerly shared with the United States. Now, all over Europe, people are being thrown in jail for social media posts, for example. 17 people in Germany were thrown in jail for posting supposed anti-Semite hate speech. Two Brits were jailed for supposedly stirring up racial hatred online.

And of course, Tommy Robinson, look into this character, he's great. Tommy Robinson, a long-time free speech advocate and a campaigner for immigration reform in Britain. He was recently released from prison where he was serving a sentence for allegedly maligning a Syrian immigrant. Also in Britain, a rape victim was sentenced to a longer prison sentence than her rapist when she called him a disgraceful rapist pig online. In fact, the rapist ended up serving no jail time whatsoever because of his tender age.

He was a young man younger than 21. Well, anyway, these are just a few samples of the panopticon control that's being exerted all over Europe and fully intended for America as well, for that matter. So, dear listener, it is legitimate to ask whether we share any longer a mutual heritage and way of life with the nations of the European Union and NATO, or whether we have more in common with our old nemesis, that is Russia. Right? I grew up under the cloud of nuclear war, the threat of nuclear war with Russia, and I have seen not only America, but I've seen Russia transform over the decades since.

And I never would have believed it, I never would have thought it, but it is my increasing conclusion that we now have far more in common with a conservative traditionalist Russia than we do with a radical satanic Luciferian Europe any longer. The potential for both good relations with Russia and with America are great, and great things could indeed happen. Consider these things, dear listener, as we come to the issue of both war and peace concerning America and old mother Russia. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

New Geneva meets for worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And you can call us for more information or some feedback on what you've just heard at area code 208-523-0196. That's 208-523-0196.