Something very strange is going on during the Russian invasion of Ukraine: there appear to be more fake images from the war than real war footage.

It may just be that this is the new reality of our social media-obsessed world. Or it may be something more sinister.

President Harold B. Lee warned us how to prepare during difficult times:

“… We should have our loins girt about with truth. What is truth? Truth, the Lord said, was knowledge of things as they are, things as they were and things as they are to come [D&C 93:24]. … ‘Our loins shall be girt about with truth,’ the prophet said.

“And the heart, what kind of a breastplate shall protect our conduct in life? We shall have over our hearts a breastplate of righteousness. Well, having learned truth we have a measure by which we can judge between right and wrong and so our conduct will always be gauged by that thing which we know to be true. Our breastplate to cover our conduct shall be the breastplate of righteousness.

“[By] what shall we protect our feet, or by what shall we gauge our objectives or our goals in life? … ‘Your feet should be shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.’ (Ephesians 6:15). …

“And then finally the helmet of salvation. … What is salvation? Salvation is to be saved. Saved from what? Saved from death and saved from sin. …

“Well, now the Apostle Paul … had his armoured man holding in his hand a shield and in his other hand a sword, which were the weapons of those days. That shield was the shield of faith and the sword was the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God. I can’t think of any more powerful weapons than faith and a knowledge of the scriptures in the which are contained the Word of God. One so armoured and one so prepared with those weapons is prepared to go out against the enemy” (Feet Shod with the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace, Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year [Nov. 9, 1954],

In contrast, our times seems filled with many more lies than with truth, and many of the lies are coming directly from government leaders and elected officials.

Check out this propaganda from warmonger Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who is pushing for U.S. planes to join the fight and shoot down Russian planes:

Kinzinger has been told several times that the image was from 2016, not 2022, but he put it on Twitter anyway in an attempt to gin up support for the Ukrainian army.

(To be clear, it is the Russian army that has invaded Ukraine, and I am in favor of independence for Ukraine and all other people who want independence. The point of this post is not to favor Russia or the invasion — the point is to avoid accepting the propaganda that is being spread far and wide. Christians should favor truth, not fake news).

There are unfortunately hundreds of other examples of propaganda being used during this conflict.

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This story from the Vatican News is not getting that much coverage, so I thought I would bring it to readers’ attention:

A group of 233 priests and deacons of the Russian Orthodox Church has launched a strong appeal to all those who can bring an end to the war in Ukraine. They have described the situation as “fratricidal” and called for reconciliation and an immediate cease-fire. They write: “We mourn the ordeal to which our brothers and sisters in Ukraine were undeservedly subjected”. The appeal came following the Sunday of the Last Judgement and in the week before Forgiveness Sunday (the two Sundays preceding Great Lent in the Eastern calendar). 

Recalling that each person’s life is a unique and priceless gift from God, the priests and deacons stress that the Last Judgement awaits all. “No earthly authority, no doctor, no guard,” they read, “will protect us from this judgement. Concerned for the salvation of every person who considers himself a child of the Russian Orthodox Church, we do not want him to come to this judgement, carrying a heavy burden. Let us remember that the blood of Christ, shed by the Saviour for the life of the world, will be received in the sacrament of Communion by those who give murderous orders, not for life, but for eternal torment”.

In the appeal, the soldiers who are fighting the war are remembered and hopes are expressed “for all of them, both Russians and Ukrainians, to return unharmed to their homes and families. It saddens us to think of the gulf that our children and grandchildren in Russia and Ukraine will have to bridge in order to begin to be friends again, to respect and love each other”. The firm conviction is also expressed that the Ukrainian people must be free to make their own choices, “not under the crosshairs of machine guns, without pressure from the West or the East”.

Looking forward to Forgiveness Sunday, the 233 Russian Orthodox clerics recall that “the gates of heaven will be open to all, even to those who have sinned greatly, if they ask forgiveness of those whom they have despised, insulted, or killed at their hands or at their will”. They emphasise that there is no alternative to mutual reconciliation. With the wish to start Lent in a spirit of faith, hope and love, the message concludes by reiterating that “no non-violent appeal for peace and an end to war should be rejected by force and considered as a violation of the law, because this is the divine commandment: Blessed are the peacemakers”. The invitation to dialogue is underscored, because “only the ability to listen to the other can give hope of a way out of the abyss into which our countries have been thrown in so few days”. 

One of the reasons this is so significant is that the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church is linked very closely to the Russian government. Patriarch Kirill, the Orthodox Primate of Moscow and All Russians, gave a prayer Sunday that seemed to offer cover for the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine. Patriarch Kirill has said that the Russian clerics opposing the war are part of a “schism” in the Russian Orthodox church.

There are three primary Christian churches in Ukraine, the Catholic church, the Russian Orthodox church and a separate Ukrainian Orthodox church, which was recognized in 2018 by the Russian Patriarch in Constantinople. The Church of Jesus Christ has more than 11,000 members in Ukraine and a temple in Kyiv. There is one stake in Ukraine with 48 congregations.

I applaud the call for peace from the Russian orthodox clerics. This should be the primary role of followers of the Prince of Peace, to continue to call for peace and the end of war, no matter the circumstances.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released this statement Friday:

The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has issued the following statement:

We are heartbroken and deeply concerned by the armed conflict now raging. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has members in each of the affected areas and throughout the world. Our minds and hearts have been turned toward them and all our brothers and sisters.

We continue to pray for peace. We know that enduring peace can be found through Jesus Christ. He can calm and comfort our souls even in the midst of terrible conflicts. He taught us to love God and our neighbors.

We pray that this armed conflict will end quickly, that the controversies will end peacefully and that peace will prevail among nations and within our own hearts. We plead with world leaders to seek for such resolutions and peace.

The First Presidency

Has anybody else noticed that now that the pandemic is winding down, suddenly there is a new crisis — a bloody war in the Ukraine — that is meant to create panic?

Perpetual presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had an unintentionally hilarious piece in the Atlantic this morning claiming that the Ukraine conflict is caused by Republicans who hate democracy just like Vladimar Putin hates democracy. Meanwhile, the same people who just a month ago were telling you to “mask up” and “get triple vaxxed” are now calling anybody not banging the war drum a traitor. More claims of treason here.

Former Democratic presidential candidate and military veteran Tulsi Gabbard called for a peaceful resolution to the crisis and was met with hundreds of Twitter followers who said things like this:

Meanwhile, those of us with eyes to see and ears to hear should understand that the constant emotional manipulation is part of a pattern. The forces of evil in this world want us to hate each other and to see the world in simple, jingoistic terms. If you are against U.S. military involvement in Ukraine, you must love Putin. If you pray for Putin, you are a traitor. If you promote peace, you must be destroyed.

In this Manichean worldview, you must see Putin as Evil and Ukraine as Good. But as followers of the Prince of Peace, we must avoid being emotionally manipulated on this and every other issue. The truth is that there are many people and forces to blame for the current war in Ukraine, and the history of this conflict is much more complex than the corporate media would have us believe.

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced Friday that a universal mask mandate is no longer in place for Church members. The Church is encouraging local LDS leaders to follow guidance from “local health and government officials and local customs and conditions.”

When leaders of my church first began encouraging mask use in the second half of 2020, there were literally dozens of LDS intellectuals claiming the mandate was for health reasons. I heartily disagreed and pointed to the many years of studies indicating that almost all masks are useless against viruses. The science has not changed: almost all masks are as useful in stopping a virus as a chain link fence is in keeping out mosquitoes.

The mask mandates were never about health, and I don’t believe Church leaders ever believed the mandates were about health. The mandates were about government control and offering a frightened populace some symbol that governments were “doing something” about SARS-CoV2. It is worth pointing out that hundreds of individual stakes, including mine, told members they did not have to wear masks before the February 18 announcement from the First Presidency, so if the FP announcement imposing masks was a commandment of some kind, why did these stake presidencies commit apostasy?

Over the months I have linked to dozens of studies on masks showing that masks do not stop viruses.

Just to give one example, here is what a leading surgeon and the former editor of a medical journal has to say:

A response to people who use the classic fallacious argument, “Well, if masks don’t work, then why do surgeons wear them?”

I’m a surgeon who has performed more than 10,000 surgical procedures wearing a surgical mask. However, that fact alone doesn’t really qualify me as an expert on the matter. More importantly, I am a former editor of a medical journal.

I know how to read the medical literature, distinguish good science from bad, and fact from fiction. Believe me, the medical literature is filled with bad fiction masquerading as medical science. It is very easy to be deceived by bad science.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve read hundreds of studies on the science of medical masks. Based on extensive review and analysis, there is no question in my mind that healthy people should not be wearing surgical or cloth masks. Nor should we be recommending universal masking of all members of the population. That recommendation is not supported by the highest level of scientific evidence.

First, let’s be clear. The premise that surgeons wearing masks serves as evidence that “masks must work to prevent viral transmission” is a logical fallacy that I would classify as an argument of false equivalence, or comparing “apples to oranges.”

Although surgeons do wear masks to prevent their respiratory droplets from contaminating the surgical field and the exposed internal tissues of our surgical patients, that is about as far as the analogy extends. Obviously, surgeons cannot “socially distance” from their surgical patients (unless we use robotic surgical devices, in which case, I would definitely not wear a mask).

The CoVID-19 pandemic is about viral transmission. Surgical and cloth masks do nothing to prevent viral transmission. We should all realize by now that face masks have never been shown to prevent or protect against viral transmission. Which is exactly why they have never been recommended for use during the seasonal flu outbreak, epidemics, or previous pandemics.

The failure of the scientific literature to support medical masks for influenza and all other viruses is also why Fauci, the U.S. Surgeon General, the CDC, WHO, and pretty much every infectious disease expert stated that wearing masks won’t prevent transmission of SARS CoV-2. Although the public health “authorities” flipped, flopped, and later changed their recommendations, the science did not change, nor did new science appear that supported the wearing of masks in public. In fact, the most recent systemic analysis once again confirms that masks are ineffective in preventing the transmission of viruses like CoVID-19.

So, we must ask ourselves in retrospect, why did the position on masks change all of a sudden in April 2020?

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