We should all be familiar with the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:6, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.” There is no doubt that wars and rumors of wars have been with us throughout human history. They will continue down to the time of Christ’s second coming. Some recent events have created some seemingly new conflicts in the world.

Ethiopia’s human rights commission reports at least 600 people were killed in the town of Mai Kadra in western Tigray on November 9 when local youths known as Samri, aided by the then-local administration, went door to door killing those they identified as members of the minority Amhara and Wolkait ethnic groups.

Over 92,000 sexual abuse claims were filed against the Boy Scouts of America as the November 16 deadline arrived for submitting claims in the organization’s bankruptcy case.

This number is much larger than what was expected from lawyers across the United States who have been signing up clients since the Boy Scouts filed for bankruptcy protection in February. The lawsuits allege decades-old sex abuse by Scout leaders.

In the filing, the Boy Scouts’ attorneys conceded that predators used the Scouts to access children, and local troops failed to act on all reports of abuse. The Boy Scouts National Chairman Jim Turley apologized to families in an open letter in February.

The dramatic drop in religious commitment in the United States may be one of the most foreboding indicators of where our country may be headed in the next forty years. Unlike similarly advanced technological cultures like Europe and Japan the U.S. has maintained more religious commitment. But a new book by Ronald F. Inglehart, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, suggests we are catching up to other secular societies.

When asked to express the importance of God in their lives on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “not at all important” and 10 being “very important,” Americans rated God at an average of 4.6 in 2017. That rating was down from 8.2 a decadebefore, according to an excerpt from Inglehart’s book, Religion’s Sudden Decline, in the September/October 2020 issue of Foreign Affairs.

The Church of Sweden recently announced that Swedish female priests outnumber male Swedish priests for the first time in the sixty years since females were permitted to become priests.

Of the 3,060 priests currently serving in Sweden, 1,533 are female, which is 50.1 percent, according to Cristina Grenholm, secretary for the Church of Sweden. The Church of Sweden Lutheran Confession is listed as representing 60.2 percent of Sweden’s population. Sweden is one of the most liberal nations in the world, so this development is not surprising. But other countries and churches are following along with the Swedish example.

Neuralink Corporation is an American neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk and others, developing implantable brain–machine interfaces (BMIs). The company’s headquarters are in San Francisco.

Since its founding in 2016, the company has hired several high-profile neuroscientists from various universities. By July 2019, it had received $158 million in funding (of which $100 million was from Musk) and was employing a staff of 90 employees. At that time, Neuralink announced that it was working on a “sewing machine-like” device capable of implanting very thin threads into the brain, and demonstrated a system that read information from a lab rat via 1,500 electrodes, anticipating starting experiments with humans in 2020.

A recent movie playing on Netflix called Cuties has caused some controversy. Politicians expressed outrage, newspaper, radio and internet sites all commented. The director of the film, Maimouna Doucoure, said she was inspired to make the movie after she was shocked at a dance recital for young girls that seemed to sexualize them. This incident led her to begin researching social media and the pressures on young girls today.

Doucoure said, “I believe that cinema, and art in general, can change the world. We are able to see the oppression of women in other cultures. But my question is, isn’t the objectification of a woman’s body that we see in our Western culture not another kind of oppression?”

Bahrain and Israel announced on September 11, 2020, that they have agreed to establish diplomatic relations just a few weeks after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) worked out a similar deal (see my blog of August 28, 2020) with the Jewish state.

“This is a historic breakthrough to further peace in the Middle East,” read the joint statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain and President Donald Trump of the United States. The statement went on to say, “Opening direct dialogue and ties between these two dynamic societies and advanced economies will continue the positive transformation of the Middle East and increase stability, security, and prosperity in the region.”

Parts of a half-dozen states are being charred by more than 70 wildfires. Over 3.3 million acres have burned in California this year, which is a modern record. This has occurred before the traditional fire season begins. Thus far thirty-five people have been killed and over 4,000 homes, farmhouses and wineries have already been destroyed.

Over 14,000 firefighters were fighting fires from San Diego County in Southern California to the Creek fire in the center of the state. In September red-flag warnings, signaling a high fire threat, were up in much of California, Nevada, western Oregon and Washington, western Arizona and southern Utah.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel reached an agreement on normalizing relations in mid-August. The UAE is now only the third Arab country after Jordan and Egypt to have diplomatic relations with Israel.

UAE officials said they made this move in part to stop Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank. The West Bank and Gaza Strip were Palestinian territories occupied by Israel after the Six Day War of 1967. Israeli settlers have created villages on some of this West Bank land and Israel was planning on taking over some of these areas. That has all been put on hold with this new agreement.

On August 5, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India helped dedicate a Hindu temple on the spot where a Muslim mosque once stood. The ceremony took place in the northern Indian state of Ayodhua. Modi and his Hindu nationalist party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is seeking to transform India into a state dominated by the Hindu majority.

In 1992 Hindu extremists destroyed a mosque where the Hindu temple site now stands. Nationwide riots ensued and about 2,000 people were killed. The temple project was also the source of riots in 2002 that left more than 1,000 people dead, mostly Muslims. India’s Supreme Court gave control of the site to Hindu groups in 2019 after a long legal battle.

Black Lives Matter (BLM). Let the words resonate in your mind for a moment. What are you thinking about? Are you thinking about peaceful protests that are trying to overcome oppressive behavior? Are you thinking about black people who have been killed by the police in circumstances that could have been avoided? Are you thinking of slavery in the United States? You might even be thinking of an organization called BLM. Some of you might even be thinking of protesters turning violent and causing mayhem. Or maybe you are thinking of racist behavior directed at black people in the United States throughout our history. There are other possibilities you could be thinking about, too.