Latest news with #Evangelicals
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
GHF names Rev. Dr. Johnnie Moore as Executive Chairman amid expanding aid efforts
Moore was interviewed by The Jerusalem Post earlier in May, where he spoke about Evangelical Christians and support for Israel. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) on Tuesday appointed Reverend Dr. Johnnie Moore as executive chairman of the US-run aid organization. Moore was appointed twice by US President Donald Trump to serve as a Commissioner on the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the statement on his appointment said. Moore was interviewed by The Jerusalem Post earlier in May, where he spoke about Evangelical Christians and support for Israel. "However, you slice it, about 80-90% of those Evangelicals around the world would think well of the Jewish people and Israel," he explained. He also discussed the importance of Evangelical voices since the October 7 massacre. "Since October 7, the Evangelical community has really taken responsibility to speak up," he said. While there has been considerable pressure from politicians and activists against those speaking in favor of Israel over the past year, Moore said that "I don't know a single Evangelical that flinched in the face of all of that," further noting the confidence the community has in Israel. "We believe the Jewish community is strong. We believe the State of Israel is strong. We believe the State of Israel can handle itself, even if the United States weren't there," Moore said. According to the GHF, since launching operations on May 26, 2025, over 7 million meals have been distributed in Gaza. They noted that no trucks were seized, no mass diversions occurred, and no incidents of violence were recorded at distribution sites. GHF also denied on Sunday that the IDF attacked a food distribution point near Rafah, contradicting widely circulated Hamas reports.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Huckabee wants to remove his yellow pin, because it would mean all the hostages came home
The US ambassador to Israel also attended the dedication of an ambulance donated by Evangelicals. One would expect the dedication of an ambulance to take place in the parking lot of a hospital, health clinic, or the organization to which the ambulance was donated - but not in a museum. However, there are always exceptions to the rule, and the bulletproof ambulance donated to Magen David Adom by Samaritan's Purse and Harvest Christian Fellowship was dedicated at the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem just a few hours prior to the onset of Shavuot. The date and the venue were not coincidental. King David, who made Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish people, was born on Shavuot, and the museum bears his name. The ambulance which was the 42nd donated by Samaritan's Purse since October 2023 massacre by Hamas, was dedicated in the presence of scores of MDA personnel, including MDA global president and former Israel ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan past and present MKs and local authority officials, numerous Evangelicals including US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, US embassy staff, three generations of the family of Reverend Franklin Graham, the President of Samaritan's Purse, Senior Pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship Greg Laurie, and some dozen stills and video photographers. Also present were returned hostages and members of hostage families including Karina Engel, who, with her two daughters, were abducted by Hamas and returned in November 2023 with the first of the released hostages. Her husband Ronen, an MDA volunteer, was murdered by Hamas and taken to Gaza, where his body is still in captivity. An ambulance in his memory was dedicated in January 2024. Engel told her story with tears streaming down her face and her voice choked with emotion. She has developed a special relationship with Graham and his wife, who both hugged her when she finished speaking. Huckabee said that when he came to Israel, he was asked what he wanted to do during his tenure. Pointing to the yellow ribbon pin on his jacket, he said that he wanted to take it off and never have to wear it again, because that would mean that all the hostages had come home. Huckabee is familiar with the Samaritan's Purse, where his wife Janet has been a volunteer for years. He had high praise for the Evangelical aid organization, which he said, shows up wherever there is a calamity in the world and continues to help people who are in harm's way. Referencing the saying in Jewish tradition, that he who saves a single life is as one who saves a whole world, Erdan said that through Samaritan's Purse and Harvest Christian Fellowship, many lives and many worlds had been saved. What they have done, he added, is a powerful proclamation that Israel is not alone. 'You answered hatred with hope,' he told the Evangelical leaders. There was no better place than Jerusalem for the dedication of the ambulance, he said, because Jerusalem is the city holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and MDA staff and volunteers are made up of people of all faiths. Erdan also pledged that Israel will never waver in its determination to defeat terror, and will never rest until all the hostages have been brought home. He declared that 'Israel's fight is civilization's fight against terrorism and radical extremism.' Graham had been curious as to when the first ever hostages were taken prisoner and abducted, and found the answer in the Scriptures in Genesis 14, where Lot is taken hostage and Abraham goes to rescue him. Graham described Abraham as 'the first responder of his generation.' Listing some of the things that Samaritan's Purse has done, Graham gave credit to many of those present. When President Isaac Herzog had asked him to provide an ambulance for the north of the country, he had turned to Laurie and had impressed on him that the ambulance had to be delivered immediately. In addition, 14 severely damaged ambulances were replaced. Samaritan's Purse also concerned itself with people evacuated from their homes and placed in hotels. Instead of giving them food parcels, Samaritan's Purse gave them gift cards so that they could buy what they wanted and needed. The organization also thought of other ways to help. To determine the needs, Graham has been a frequent visitor to Israel. Laurie considered it a privilege and an honor to be able to help Israel. 'We want to say to the People of Israel and to the Jewish People generally, that we stand with you, and that we want to do something tangible.' Quoting the biblical blessing given by God to the Children of Israel, Laurie said: 'We are an extension of the blessing of the Lord.' He was also proud of the fact that (in 1948) the US had been the first country to recognize Israel's legitimacy. In the face of antisemitism, Laurie has spoken aggressively on university campuses across America. MDA Director General Eli Bin recalled that when watching President Donald Trump's inauguration on television, he had caught sight of Graham, and had sent a WhatsApp message to Erdan asking whether this was indeed their Reverend Graham. When Eldan confirmed that it was Graham, Bin's reaction was, 'Now we have two Israel ambassadors in the US.'
IOL News
27-05-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
Pope's call to tame AI sets tone for Christian leaders
New pope greets world from St Peter's Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, Robert Francis Prevost (L) gestures on the main central loggia balcony of the St Peter's Basilica, after the cardinals ended the conclave, in The Vatican, on May 8, 2025. The pope was cited by Protestant American Evangelical leaders who launched an open letter to President Donald Trump published Wednesday, calling for an "AI revolution accelerating responsibly" while warning of "potential peril". Image: Andrej ISAKOVIC / AFP Pope Leo XIV singled out the challenges of artificial intelligence as he took office this month, underscoring religious leaders' hopes to influence a technology freighted with both vast hopes and apocalyptic fears. The pope was cited by Protestant American Evangelical leaders who launched an open letter to President Donald Trump published Wednesday, calling for an "AI revolution accelerating responsibly" while warning of "potential peril". Leo XIV told cardinals on May 10 that he had taken his papal name in honour of Leo XIII (1878-1903). He had "addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution", said the pope. Today, "the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence," he added. Wednesday's letter from the Evangelicals called for the development of "powerful AI tools that help cure diseases and solve practical problems". But it also warned of "autonomous smarter-than-human machines that nobody knows how to control" -- echoing the language of Silicon Valley's so-called "AI doomers". 'Epochal change' Leo's highlighting of AI follows years of interventions at different levels of the Catholic Church, said Paolo Benanti, 51, a priest with a PhD in engineering. Benanti has advised both the Vatican and the Italian government on technology. The late pope, Francis, wove his thinking about technology and AI into wider reflections on climate change and society. In a January speech, he cited "concerns about intellectual property rights, the job security of millions of people, the need to respect privacy and protect the environment" as well as misinformation. Such 21st-Century challenges animated Francis's 2015 remark that "we are not living an epoch of change so much as an epochal change", Benanti told AFP. And he was at pains to say that the Vatican was not looking to hold back progress. "Look at the huge improvement that AI can produce" in cases like assisting medical diagnosis in regions without enough doctors, he said. "AI could be a wonderful tool but could be weaponised... this is something that could happen with every kind of technology, from the hammer... up to nuclear power," Benanti added. Ethical algorithms Francis called for crafting a new "algor-ethics" (a portmanteau of "algorithm" and "ethics") to govern emerging artificial intelligence. One key moral concept in Church documents about technology is upholding "human dignity". This means avoiding "some kind of system that simply cannot recognise the uniqueness of the human being and respect it," Benanti said. He gave the hypothetical example of an automated process for deciding on asylum applications "based on correlation with other data and not with your own and unique story". Such technology would recall the Holocaust, "the darkest page of the last century" when "one piece of data" on whether a person was Jewish or not could condemn them, Benanti said. In the world of work, the friar hopes to see "human-compatible AI innovation", with people "putting something unique inside the process". Humans should "remain in a position to produce value" rather than being relegated to filling in the gaps around machine capabilities, he urged. 'Reduce the risks' Francis said in January last year that "highly sophisticated machines that act as a support for thinking... can be abused by the primordial temptation to become like God without God". "It's very perilous when individuals assume for themselves godlike powers, to make decisions for the rest of us," agreed Reverend Johnnie Moore, President of the US-based Congress of Christian Leaders and a lead signatory of Wednesday's open letter. Rather than allowing tech bosses and scientists to set the terms of the future, leaders should "go to the well" of religious thought's "compounding wisdom over the centuries" to help chart the course, he told AFP by phone from Washington. Where Pope Leo highlighted "new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour" from artificial intelligence, the Evangelical leaders went further. They quoted OpenAI chief Sam Altman's 2015 remark that "AI will most likely lead to the end of the world -- but in the meantime, there'll be great companies". "The current risk equation is just way too high to be tolerable," Moore said. "We have to reduce the risk to human beings in this process."
The Hindu
23-05-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Google's AI Matryoshka; FTC drops case over Microsoft Activision Blizzard deal; Pope Leo XIV's call to tame AI
Google's AI Matryoshka Google's annual I/O developer conference in 2025 was less a showcase of disparate product updates and more a systematic unveiling of an AI-centric future. The unspoken theme was that of a Matryoshka doll: at its core, a refined and potent artificial intelligence, with each successive layer representing a product or platform drawing life from this central intelligence. Google is not merely sprinkling AI across its offerings; it is fundamentally rearchitecting its vast ecosystem around it. The result is an increasingly interconnected and agentic experience, one that extends to users, developers, and enterprises alike, prompting a re-evaluation of the firm's responsibilities concerning the data that fuels this transformation. Yet, as each layer of this AI Matryoshka is peeled back, the data upon which this intelligence is built, the copyrighted material ingested by its models, and the implications for user privacy are brought into sharper focus, forming a critical, if less trumpeted, narrative. FTC drops case over Microsoft Activision Blizzard deal The U.S. Federal Trade Commission dropped a case that sought to block Microsoft's $69 billion purchase of 'Call of Duty' maker Activision Blizzard, saying on Thursday that pursuing the case against the long-closed deal was not in the public interest. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson is seeking to use the agency's resources for cases that fit with President Donald Trump's agenda, such as a probe related to whether advertisers colluded to spend less on X first reported by Reuters on Thursday. Ferguson is beginning to shut down some efforts started by his predecessor Lina Khan, including dropping a case on Thursday that had accused PepsiCo of price discrimination that favored Walmart. The FTC lost an appeal on May 7 seeking to reverse a judge's decision declining to block the Microsoft-Activision deal, which closed in 2023. The Activision Blizzard transaction marked the largest-ever acquisition in the video gaming market. Pope Leo XIV's call to tame AI Pope Leo XIV singled out the challenges of artificial intelligence as he took office this month, underscoring religious leaders' hopes to influence a technology freighted with both vast hopes and apocalyptic fears. The pope was cited by Protestant American Evangelical leaders who launched an open letter to President Donald Trump published Wednesday, calling for an 'AI revolution accelerating responsibly' while warning of 'potential peril'. He had 'addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution', said the pope. Today, 'the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence,' he added. Letter from the Evangelicals called for the development of 'powerful AI tools that help cure diseases and solve practical problems'. But it also warned of 'autonomous smarter-than-human machines that nobody knows how to control.'
The Hindu
23-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Pope Leo XIV's call to tame AI sets tone for Christian leaders
Pope Leo XIV singled out the challenges of artificial intelligence as he took office this month, underscoring religious leaders' hopes to influence a technology freighted with both vast hopes and apocalyptic fears. The pope was cited by Protestant American Evangelical leaders who launched an open letter to President Donald Trump published Wednesday, calling for an "AI revolution accelerating responsibly" while warning of "potential peril". Leo XIV told cardinals on May 10 that he had taken his papal name in honour of Leo XIII (1878-1903). He had "addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution", said the pope. Today, "the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence," he added. Wednesday's letter from the Evangelicals called for the development of "powerful AI tools that help cure diseases and solve practical problems". But it also warned of 'autonomous smarter-than-human machines that nobody knows how to control,' echoing the language of Silicon Valley's so-called 'AI doomers'. Leo's highlighting of AI follows years of interventions at different levels of the Catholic Church, said Paolo Benanti, 51, a priest with a PhD in engineering. Benanti has advised both the Vatican and the Italian government on technology. The late pope, Francis, wove his thinking about technology and AI into wider reflections on climate change and society. In a January speech, he cited "concerns about intellectual property rights, the job security of millions of people, the need to respect privacy and protect the environment" as well as misinformation. Such 21st-Century challenges animated Francis's 2015 remark that "we are not living an epoch of change so much as an epochal change", Benanti told AFP. And he was at pains to say that the Vatican was not looking to hold back progress. "Look at the huge improvement that AI can produce" in cases like assisting medical diagnosis in regions without enough doctors, he said. "AI could be a wonderful tool but could be weaponised... this is something that could happen with every kind of technology, from the hammer... up to nuclear power," Benanti added. Francis called for crafting a new "algor-ethics" (a portmanteau of "algorithm" and "ethics") to govern emerging artificial intelligence. One key moral concept in Church documents about technology is upholding "human dignity". This means avoiding "some kind of system that simply cannot recognise the uniqueness of the human being and respect it," Benanti said. He gave the hypothetical example of an automated process for deciding on asylum applications "based on correlation with other data and not with your own and unique story". Such technology would recall the Holocaust, "the darkest page of the last century" when "one piece of data" on whether a person was Jewish or not could condemn them, Benanti said. In the world of work, the friar hopes to see "human-compatible AI innovation", with people "putting something unique inside the process". Humans should "remain in a position to produce value" rather than being relegated to filling in the gaps around machine capabilities, he urged. Francis said in January last year that "highly sophisticated machines that act as a support for thinking... can be abused by the primordial temptation to become like God without God". "It's very perilous when individuals assume for themselves godlike powers, to make decisions for the rest of us," agreed Reverend Johnnie Moore, President of the U.S.-based Congress of Christian Leaders and a lead signatory of Wednesday's open letter. Rather than allowing tech bosses and scientists to set the terms of the future, leaders should "go to the well" of religious thought's "compounding wisdom over the centuries" to help chart the course, he told AFP by phone from Washington. Where Pope Leo highlighted "new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour" from artificial intelligence, the Evangelical leaders went further. They quoted OpenAI chief Sam Altman's 2015 remark that "AI will most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great companies". "The current risk equation is just way too high to be tolerable," Moore said. "We have to reduce the risk to human beings in this process."
