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Friday, May 3, 2019

POWAY SYNAGOGUE SHOOTING RABBI APPEARS AT WHITE HOUSE WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP

POWAY SYNAGOGUE SHOOTING RABBI APPEARS AT WHITE HOUSE WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP
BY DANIEL GREENFIELD
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
One element that made the Poway synagogue shooting very different from the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting was the membership stayed w.
Chabad of Poway was not only more traditional, its congregants included a Border Patrol officer and a military vet who reacted quickly to the shooter. And a number of Israeli tourists who also quickly jumped into action. That significantly minimized the death toll.
Leading the way was Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein who acted quickly to save the children under fire, losing a finger in the process.
Rabbi Goldstein with his congregants after the shooting, despite being wounded, delivering an impromptu sermon. And he spoke movingly and convincingly. 
Here he is now at the White House, putting the lie to the media's attempts to blame President Trump for anti-Semitic violence.
President Donald Trump has celebrated the National Day of Prayer with survivors of last weekend's Chabad of Poway synagogue shooting.
Trump and rabbi Yisroel Goldstein of the Chabad of Poway synagogue spoke by telephone after Saturday's shooting. Goldstein told celebrants during a ceremony Wednesday in the White House Rose Garden that Trump was the first person "who began my healing."
Goldstein thanked Trump for being, "as they say in Yiddish, a mensch par excellence." Mensch is Yiddish for a "person of integrity and honor." Trump said Goldstein is an "incredible man."
Two other heroes of the tragedy, off-duty Border Patrol agent Johnathan Morales and Army veteran Oscar Stewart, attended the ceremony.
Lori Kaye was killed and three others were injured in the shooting, including the rabbi, who lost a finger.

THE NY TIMES' JEW-HATING CESSPOOL

THE NY TIMES' JEW-HATING CESSPOOL

Many are surprised, but they shouldn't be

BY MICHAEL LEDEEN
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Michael Ledeen is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center and Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The Times. New York, that is.   
As Roger Simon says, it isn’t just about the Jews and Israel, it’s everything.  And it isn’t a new departure, but part of a long-standing pattern.  The dreadful newspaper did not support the rescue of Jewish refugees from the Third Reich.  Its owners, the Sulzbergers, were German Jewish immigrants who were contemptuous of East German Jews (Poland, especially), and editorially asked FDR to block entry to the East Europeans, most famously those on board the St Louis, which incredibly was sent back to the Nazis.
Moreover, the Times consistently underplayed the dimensions of the Holocaust, one of the reasons American military officers, including Eisenhower himself, were so horrified by what they saw when they entered the liberated concentration camps. Ike sent a message to Congressional leaders urging them to visit, because it was impossible to imagine the horror.  Even General Patton was overcome by nausea when he first entered.
The Times has repeatedly called for “understanding” our enemies, especially totalitarians.  The newspaper’s Moscow reporter, Walter Duranty, denied the forced starvation of the Ukrainian people in the early 1930s (for which he outrageously was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, still displayed at NYT headquarters), and similarly called on President Reagan to tone down his attacks on the Soviet Gulag Archipelago.  They warned Reagan not to push the Soviets’ back against the wall, lest Brezhnev or Gorbachev get angry.  Omri Ceren put it nicely in a tweet:
NYT spent decades defending antisemitic smears & BDS as legit criticism of Israel. They pushed Obama admin's agenda via Jew trackers & stories exploiting oppressed Iran Jews. They wove Jews into Russiagate conspiracism. You can't do that without having effect on newsroom culture.
The latest anti-Semitic cartoons are just the most recent, not something brand new.  The Times has always oppose American leaders who see “peace” as something abstractly desirable, instead of understanding that peace is imposed on the loser of a battle or war.  Hence the Times did not want the United States to defeat the Soviet Empire in the Cold War, and certainly did not want the fall of Gorbachev along with Reagan’s historic victory.  As Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer elegantly proclaimed, the Times was similarly hostile towards Israel in general and Prime Minister Netanyahu in particular, because they fought back against their enemies and sought to bring about a real peace in the Middle East.  The breathtaking realignment of Israel’s relations with the Arab world might seem worthy of praise, but no.  Instead, the Times is “a cesspool of hostility towards Israel."
Many are surprised, but they should not be.  The liberal Jews who own, edit, and in large part write the newspaper, only embraced Zionism when Israel was governed by socialists, even if they came from Eastern Europe.  That changed when Menachem Begin became prime minister, and the political center of gravity moved to the right, where it firmly rests today.
Ambassador Dermer well understands the dynamic, because he knows the history of the newspaper and its top dogs.
The same New York Times that a century ago mostly hid from their readers the Holocaust of the Jewish people has today made its pages a safe-space for those who hate the Jewish state,” Dermer said. “Through biased coverage, slanderous columns and antisemitic cartoons, its editors shamefully choose week after week to cast the Jewish state as a force for evil.
Listen to Roger.  It isn’t just about Jews and Israel.  It’s the whole thing.

PHILADELPHIA JIHAD BRAINWASHING OF CHILDREN~WATCH CHILDREN SING JIHADIST SONGS CALLING FOR TERROR, DECAPITATION, BLOODY WARFARE, REVENGE

From Philasteen to Philadelphia: 

Muslim Youth Indoctrination 

on Full-Display in America

"WE WILL CHOP OFF THEIR HEADS"
On April 22, 2019, the Muslim American Society Islamic Center in Philadelphia (MAS Philly) uploaded a video of an "Ummah Day" celebration to its Facebook page in which young children wearing Palestinian scarves sang: "Glorious steeds call us and lead us [to] the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The blood of martyrs protects us… Take us, oh ships… until we reach our shores and crush the treacherous ones… Flow, oh rivers of martyrs!" A young girl read a poem praising martyrs who sacrificed their lives for Palestine, and she asked: "Will [Jerusalem] be a hotbed for cowards?" Another young girl read: "We will defend [Palestine] with our bodies… We will chop off their heads, and we will liberate the sorrowful and exalted Al-Aqsa Mosque… We will subject them to eternal torture." MAS Philly belongs to the Muslim American Society (MAS), which has 42 chapters in the United States and one in the United Kingdom. MAS' website says that its mission is to "move people to strive for God-consciousness, liberty and justice, and to convey Islam with utmost clarity," and that its vision is "a virtuous and just American society."
EXCERPTS:
MAS, which prosecutors say was founded in 1993 as the "overt arm" of the Muslim Brotherhood in America, has a long history of promoting violent incitement in the U.S. During its 2016 convention, MAS hosted Sheikh Mohammed Rateb Nabulsi – a Syrian imam who met with senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and sanctioned Palestinian suicide bombings. In 2017, Nabulsi was banned from Denmark as a "hate preacher." Last year, he spoke at the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., at a middle school near Orlando, and at the Islamic Center of Boca Raton.
MAS is headquartered in Alexandria, Va. and has local chapters in over 20 states. Several of its leaders have been tied to the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in northern Virginia, which serves as incubator of hate and long track-record of radical and terrorist associations.
During the MAS-Philadelphia event, a large group of girls lip-synced another famous Arabic song that encourages violence to remove Israel's presence around Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque. The song compares Jerusalem's fall to the Crusaders to modern day Israel's sovereignty over the city.
"They were attacked by the army of darkness, and they occupied our Aqsa for years.
But Saladin came to us, an army committed to our religion.
God with clear victory, he achieved a dream and returned al-Aqsa.
... And the Zionists today returned. They occupied al-Aqsa.
But we are not to blame and our Masra will be restored."
PHILADELPHIA JIHAD TRAINING OF CHILDREN~
WATCH CHILDREN SING JIHADIST SONGS
BY DANIEL GREENFIELD
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
We think of Jihadist indoctrination of schoolchildren as an evil that takes place in Iran, Gaza or Yemen. We’ve seen the scenes of young children praising violence and committing to war against non-Muslims from the Middle East.
IPT Exclusive Video: Children at a Muslim school run by @mas_national in #Philadelphia sing about the "Blood of Martyrs" and fighting #Israelpic.twitter.com/Rw9dTEfaqm
— InvestigativeProject (@TheIPT) May 1, 2019
IPT Exclusive Video: Philadelphia #Muslim school students sing song with violent anti-Semitic pro-terrorist lyrics pic.twitter.com/5tPSqypd2V
— InvestigativeProject (@TheIPT) May 1, 2019
But these videos uploaded by the Investigative Project on Terrorism aren’t coming out of Gaza, but out of Philadelphia.
Young Muslim boys, dressed in traditional Palestinian garb, passionately lip-sync:
“The blood of the martyrs is calling us. Paradise, men desire it.
Revolutionaries, Revolutionaries …
Sword and Text, oh free men.”
During the song, several children hold up a copy of the Quran.
“Until we liberate our lands, until reach our anchorages, and we crush the traitor.
… Oh, the winds of Paradise. Oh rivers of the martyrs, lads
My Islam calls whoever responds. Stand up, O righteous ones
 The setting, as IPT reveals is, the Muslim American Society (MAS)’s Philadelphia chapter “Ummah Day”.
A poster emphasizes, “One Ummah”.
The theme here is patriotism, but not American patriotism. Instead it is the Islamic patriotism of an interdependent order in which Muslims fight each other’s Jihadist battles around the world, that has driven so many Muslims to enlist in ISIS.
The Jihad is inside America.
________________________________________________________
SEE ALSO:
https://www.investigativeproject.org/1072/birds-of-paradise-martyrdom-recruitment-as
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273662/trump-considers-designating-muslim-brotherhood-matthew-vadum

FAKE REMORSE:

Hugh Fitzgerald: In Philadelphia, The Muslim American Society Regrets “The Oversight”

EXCERPTS:
“A national Muslim group says it will conduct an investigation into an event at a Philadelphia Islamic center last month during which a group of youngsters sang songs it said were not “properly vetted,” calling that “an unintended mistake and an oversight.”
“While we celebrate the coming together of different cultures and languages, not all songs were properly vetted,” the Muslim American Society, based in Washington, said in a statement issued on May 3. “This was an unintended mistake and an oversight in which the center and the students are remorseful. MAS will conduct an internal investigation to ensure this does not occur again.”
As a faith-based organization dedicated to moving people to strive for God-consciousness and a just and virtuous society, we affirm our long-standing position on our shared values of humanity. We stand resolutely in our condemnation of hate, bigotry, Islamophobia, xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism and all the illnesses of hate that plague our society,” MAS said in its statement.
_______________________________________________________
SEE ALSO:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/05/cair-justifies-san-diego-synagogue-attack-and-muslim-children-singing-about-beheading-jews-in-philadelphia
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/12/philadelphia-authorities-cave-to-muslim-group-over-muslim-kids-dancing-to-chopping-heads-jihad-song-take-no-action

RESEARCH SHOWS AT LEAST $41 MILLION OF AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS SPENT ON JIHADIST ORGANIZATIONS

RESEARCH SHOWS AT LEAST $41 MILLION OF AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS SPENT ON JIHADIST ORGANIZATIONS 
BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
This shocking report is a must read below. It outlines how the American people are being used as dhimmis and manipulated in the global jihad war as unwitting “sponsors” of jihad terror, without any say in the matter.
In total….at least $41 million was given to institutions either controlled or under the partial influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat-e-Islami… Salafis, Deobandis (a hardline South Asian Sunni sect from which the Taliban was created) and the Iranian regime, among others. Some of the largest amounts involve grants to aid charities.
The latter is how stealth jihadists hide their mission. The hard earned money of American taxpayers should not be going toward the jihadist mission to subvert America,  where its citizens are already deemed to be inferiors by Islamic supremacists.
“$41 Million of Taxpayer-Subsidized Islamism”, by Sam Westrop, The Daily Wire, May 1, 2019:
Research by the Middle East Forum has found that since 2007, federal government agencies have handed over $47 million to 61 Islamic institutions in the forms of 411 various grants and contracts.
On the face of it, this need not be of concern. The government has long relied on contractors and charities from all faiths to implement its programs. Alarmingly, however, radical Islamic movements completely control 36% of the Muslim institutions that received government monies, taking 42% of the total funding. A further 36% of the grantees, which received 44% of the funds, operate under varying degrees of radical influence. A mere 14% of identified government funds given to Muslim organizations were directed toward institutions free of Islamist influence.
In total, if the government’s own data is accurate, at least $41 million was given to institutions either controlled or under the partial influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat-e-Islami (a violent South Asian Islamist movement), Salafis, Deobandis (a hardline South Asian Sunni sect from which the Taliban was created) and the Iranian regime, among others.
Some of the largest amounts involve grants to aid charities. Long favored by Islamist movements as a means to spread ideology through welfare, charities also provide extremists with plentiful funding and the occasional accompanying credibility of government partnership.
The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), for instance, received over $10 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for disaster relief work in 2016 and 2018. ICNA is the U.S. representative body of Jamaat-e-Islami, which was recently banned by the Indian government in the Kashmir region because of its involvement with “extremism and militancy in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere.”
ICNA and its subsidiaries openly partner with official Jamaat-e-Islami organizations in Pakistan, such as Al Khidmat Foundation, a funder of the designated terrorist organization Hamas. The Investigative Project on Terrorism has noted that Al Khidmat’s President, Naeem ur-Rehman, is closely involved with the designated Kashmiri jihadist group Hizbul Mujahideen.
In addition, ICNA runs an international aid branch, Helping Hand for Relief and Development, which has openly partnered in Pakistan with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a designated terrorist organization responsible for the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Another Jamaat-e-Islami charity, Muslim Aid, received over $1.5 million from the American taxpayer in 2013 for a “Food for Peace” program. Muslim Aid is based in Britain, but operates a fundraising office in America.
In 2010, three years before the U.S. government handed over taxpayers’ money to the charity, Muslim Aid admitted to funding organizations controlled by the terrorist organization Hamas, including a grant of over $18,000 to the al-Ihsan Charitable Society, designated by the U.S. government as a sponsor of terrorism. In 2013, the same year as the U.S. government grant, a war crimes tribunal sentenced to death in absentia the founder of Muslim Aid, Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, for his part in the mass-murder of teachers and intellectuals by Jamaat-e-Islami killing squads during Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War.
Other Islamist strains, meanwhile, also found generous backing. Through the enormous evangelical charity World Vision, $115,000 of taxpayers’ money was handed to a Bin Laden-linked Sudanese charity, the Islamic Relief Agency, a decade after the U.S. Treasury designated it as a terrorist-financing organization. Lawmakers are now investigating the decision to award the grant.
Three organizations named by the United Arab Emirates as terrorist groups were approved for U.S. government funding. Islamic Relief, a global charitable franchise established by supporters and officials of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, received over $1.6 million, despite its extensively-documented links to Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
These enormous sums to aid charities somewhat inflate the total figures. But the hundreds of remaining grants are not insignificant. Branches of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim American Society (MAS) collectively received over $310,000 from the taxpayer. Officials of both organizations (as well as CAIR itself) were named by federal prosecutors as unindicted coconspirators during the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial.
Funds for CAIR and MAS were provided under a diverse range of government initiatives: counter-terrorism security measures, disaster relief. chaplaincy programs and school lunch vouchers. In fact, if large grants to aid charities are disregarded, chaplaincy contracts and schooling subsidies make up a significant proportion of government funding.
The Islamic Institute of Knowledge (IIOK), for example, is a Shiite institution in Dearborn, Michigan, which has received over $851,000 under the National School Lunch Program. IIOK does not hide its ideological links. It was established by Abdel Latif Berry, a disciple of Lebanon’s late Ayatollah Fadlallah, who served as a “spiritual advisor” to the designated terrorist group Hezbollah. In 2009, IIOK held a commemoration for Ayatollah Khomeini…..

MUST WATCH: LINDSEY GRAHAM BLISTERING STATEMENT ON MUELLER REPORT & HILLARY CLINTON

MUST WATCH: LINDSEY GRAHAM BLISTERING STATEMENT ON MUELLER REPORT & HILLARY CLINTON 

AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION USES STUDY TO PUSH GUN CONTROL, NOTES MEDIA ROLE IN MASS SHOOTINGS



AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION USES STUDY 
TO PUSH GUN CONTROL, NOTES MEDIA ROLE 
IN MASS SHOOTINGS 
BY DEAN WEINGARTEN
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
U.S.A. -(Ammoland.com)- The AMA published a study of the effects of “Mass Shootings” on gun sales. The authors found gun sales were about as likely to decrease as to increase after the events.
Instead of the traditional FBI definition of a mass murder as killing four or more people in a single incident, not including themselves, the study published by the AMA uses the more wide ranging “Mass Shooting”, which they define as an incident in which 5 or more people are injured or killed. Not surprisingly, this increased the number of incidents substantially. The researchers found 124 incidents from November 1998 to April, 2016.  That is the period the National Instant Background Check System (NICS) has been in effect.
Here are the results, as published. From jamanetwork.com:
Main Outcomes and Measures Identification of major mass shootings significantly associated with changes in gun purchases, and the identification of event-specific factors associated with changes in gun purchases.
Results Between November 1998 and April 2016, 124 major mass shootings and 233 996 385 total background checks occurred. A total of 26 shootings (21.0%) were associated with increases in gun purchases and 22 shootings (17.7%) were associated with decreases in gun purchasing. Shootings receiving extensive media coverage were associated with handgun purchase increases (odds ratio, 5.28; 95% CI, 1.30-21.41; P = .02). Higher-fatality shootings had an inverse association with handgun purchase decreases (odds ratio, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.53-1.00; P = .049).
In other words, after 21% of the incidents, gun sales increased. After 18% of the incidents, gun sales decreased. There was no change for 61% of the incidents.
It is important to report the negative results of scientific studies. This is one of those cases.
When there is a “mass shooting” as defined by the study, sometimes gun sales increase. Sometimes they decrease. Most of the time, they stay the same.  It is hard to conceive of a less surprising outcome. Studies often confirm the obvious.
Some credit must be given to the author of the article about the study. She includes the information that “mass shootings” are likely increased by the excessive media coverage of “mass shootings”. From the AMA article about the study:
In an April 18 letter to CDC Director Robert R. Redfield, MD, AMA Executive Vice President and CEO James L. Madara, MD, noted research suggesting “that a mass-shooting incident increases the probability of another mass shooting in the immediate future.” He added that “analysis of media coverage of mass shootings followed by imitation or copycat incidents of mass shootings indicate a possible media contagion effect.”
Dr. Madara wrote that “the AMA agrees that the way the media reports on an event can play a role in increasing the probability of imitation.”
None the less, the author worked hard to act as if this study was evidence to promote more restrictions on gun ownership. The article mentions AMA support to require government permission to purchase a firearm (background checks) and links to a large number of infringements pushed by the AMA. The items could have come directly from the major anti-Second Amendment groups.  They include:
  • Red Flag Laws
  • Adding people convicted of “stalking” to the list of prohibited possessors
  • Adding dating partners to the list of prohibited possessors by restraining orders
  • Requiring States to establish processes to actively confiscate guns
  • Advocate to keep schools “gun free zones”
  • Oppose allowing teachers to have the ability to protect children under their care
  • Support banning the possession of firearms by adults between the ages of 18 and 21
  • Support banning the sales of firearms and ammunition to adults between the ages of 18 and 21
  • Oppose concealed carry reciprocity to allow adults with the legal right to carry concealed weapons in their home state to carry in other states.

The AMA qualifies as an anti-Second Amendment group in its own right.

This study did not give them any leverage to promote more infringements on the Second Amendment.
The AMA works hard to convince people that crime and suicide are “public health” issues. By this reasoning, everything is a public health issue, because everything affects health in one way or another.  Taxes? Public health issue. Environmental concerns? Public health issue. Crime? Public health issue. Gun ownership? Public health issue. It is hard to think of something that isn't a “public health” issue in this formulation.
Doctors are not experts on crime, economics, pollution, or guns. Declaring everything a “public health” issue is a way to leverage the public respect for doctors to push policy objectives that have nothing to do with medicine.
Progressive politics place “public health” above Constitutional rights. It is simply another way to say “general welfare” or “the greater good”.  Progressive ideology declares experts should decide what policies promote “public health” or “general welfare” or “the greater good”.  But there are always experts on every side of an issue.  Progressive ideologues just pick the experts they agree with.
Progressive ideology detests the idea of limits on government. Thus, Second Amendment rights are attacked by Progressive medical organizations such as the AMA.
What you will not find in AMA publications, is information about positive uses of guns. Self defense with guns, defense against animals, contributions to the common defense, undercut the narrative that guns only have negative consequences. It is as if doctors were evaluating a medicine, but never considered the cures the medicine produced, only its side effects. That is bad practice.

About Dean Weingarten:Dean Weingarten
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
SEE ALSO:
https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/preventing-violence

LATEST ARTICLES FROM DAVID CLOUD OF "WAY OF LIFE"

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
SEE: https://www.wayoflife.org/friday_church_news/20-18.php
SBC PRESIDENT CALLS ON CHRISTIANS 
TO STAND UP FOR LGBT RIGHTS 
(Friday Church News Notes, May 3, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - 
The following is excerpted from “SBC Prez,” ReformationCharlotte.org, Jan. 31, 2019: “The current Southern Baptist President, J.D. Greear, is proving himself to be unfit for the position he holds in America’s largest Protestant denomination. Over the last few years, the SBC has taken a sharp turn toward political as well as theological liberalism while pushing a social justice agenda. Reformation Charlotte reported earlier today that Greear, during an eisegesis of Romans 1, compared homosexuality to ‘greed’ and ‘boasting,’ even stating that most of these sins are ‘more egregious in the eyes of God’ than homosexuality. Of course, this is foolish, as homosexuality is the one sin that caused God to wipe ... cities off the face of the earth. It is, according to the text he clumsily referenced, the sin that God gives people over to because of their other sins. It is actually the wrath and judgment of God being poured out on a people to be given over to depraved minds and dishonorable passions. It has now come to light that not only has Greear misrepresented the Scriptures regarding the sin of homosexuality, he has also called on Christians to stand up for the rights of LGBT people. ... The ‘rights’ that LGBT people are fighting for are, for example, the right to use the public restroom of whatever gender they choose to identify as on any given day. The right to get married and practice sodomy in the apartment next door. The right to get married in your conservative church. The right to be fully embraced as an active, affirmed, and participating member of your church. And the right to propagandize you and your children with their vile affections that God has given them over to...”
_______________________________________________________________
PASTOR FOUNDS “CHRISTIAN CANNABIS” 
(Friday Church News Notes, May 3, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - 
The following is excerpted from “Pastor Craig Gross,” Christian Post, Apr. 29, 2019: “Pastor Craig Gross is a fan of weed. He’s not quite a heavyweight user like rapper Snoop Dogg or the legendary Willie Nelson, but he does confess to having developed a comfortable relationship with the psychoactive drug he testifies has taken him to higher levels of worship. ‘I went to Coachella and saw one of my favorite artists that I’ve ever seen and I used marijuana before seeing him. It was amazing,’ Gross tells The Christian Post. ‘I’ve never lifted my hands in a worship service ever, ‘cause I was raised Baptist. … I’ve done that in my bathroom worshiping with marijuana by myself.’ Often recognized as the founder of XXXchurch in Pasadena, California, a ministry that empowers individuals to break free from their pornography addictions, Gross has embarked on a new controversial mission: to sell and promote marijuana for Christians through a new venture called Christian Cannabis. As public perception continues to shift on the demonized plant he celebrates as a gift from God that was ‘created on day 3,’ Gross wants to bring Christian weed users out of the shadows and challenge churches to have frank conversations about marijuana. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that 62 percent of Americans, including 74 percent of Millennials, support legalizing marijuana. Ten states and Washington, D.C., have legalized it for recreational use for adults older than 21, while 33 states have legalized medical marijuana. Michigan is the latest state to legalize it for recreational purposes, while Utah and Missouri voted to legalize medical marijuana in last year’s midterm elections. Gross describes himself as among the untold number of Christians who first turned to marijuana for medicinal relief. ... It’s in the wake of this shifting and complex cultural and political landscape that Gross believes churches should start having deeper conversations on marijuana and he hopes Christian Cannabis can help drive them.”